


The Price of Gold

by Kindness



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-03-30 19:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13958637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kindness/pseuds/Kindness
Summary: That time it was just sex, and then (maybe) it wasn't.





	1. Sochi

**Author's Note:**

> Massive credit must be given to:
> 
> \- [irishmizzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishmizzy), the utter genius who had this idea and yelled it in her tumblr tags  
> \- [Care](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Care), who saw said yelling and immediately texted me, like the gold-medal best friend she is
> 
> And thanks and blame to:
> 
> \- mermaidandthedrunks, the life-ruiner who brought this situation upon me  
> \- [Sonni89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonni89), world's most darling ALLCAPS encourager, "fancy meeting you in this dumpster," etc.  
> \- Keri Halfacre, resident Canadian <3  
> \- [unfinishedidea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfinishedidea), without whom I'd never become so knowledgable about stoves/ovens/ranges ;)
> 
> Also [katayla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla), who very kindly read the first section of this when it was basically a Mad Lib, and all the rest of my beloved trash friends, who I know would have. You are all wonderful neighbors in this Canadian landfill.
> 
> Some factual liberties have been taken, mind the F in RPF, and so on.

Tessa remembers vividly the first moment she realized she might be attracted to Scott. It was some completely random training day, the year of "Umbrellas." The year Scott kept breaking up with that girl who lived in Novi, and Tessa dyed her hair for the first time, and skating had started to hurt but she didn't yet know why. It was the year she kissed Charlie just to see what it would feel like (nice, but wrong).

She and Scott had bumped noses in practice, not for the first time, and were laughing about it afterwards by the boards.

"Pah, what's 'too close'?" Scott joked, stepping into her space, pretending to menace her. Normally she'd have shoved him or backed away, but this time, for some reason, she stood her ground.

Scott stopped laughing, his nose a moment from hers. She thought they might have kissed if Marina hadn't called something out at Meryl just then, her voice like a whipcrack. Tessa jumped, papered over the awkwardness with a laugh, pushed him away only a little too late.

For months after that, she couldn't put it out of her head. They'd be at the rink or in a booth at Bob Evans or lying together on his living room floor, and she'd think, _Kiss me. Come on._

Which is to say, she always knew this might happen eventually.

**

They're not drunk or anything. No excuse as simple as that, when Tessa plays that night back in her mind later and wonders, what if it had never happened.

When she thinks back, all she can remember is that it's one of Those days. Days when practice goes _so_ well and she's happy and buzzing with energy and thinking, let's go out, let's get dinner, let's celebrate – and as they're walking out of the rink she says, "Do you want – " and he says, "Can't, sorry."

He has a date or something. Whatever. Tessa goes home. She makes herself dinner. She listens to _Quiet_ on audiobook and stretches, and thinks about how to tweak their latest lift, and halfheartedly looks ahead in the Ed Psych syllabus. She doesn't wonder what Scott's up to. Not once. Well, maybe once.

They have the most amazing life; they really do. Tessa loves it, and she feels so grateful, and there's nothing that means more to her than their skating career. But...

It's just that sometimes, just for a second, she wishes she could be _normal_. She's twenty-three years old, and all her friends are dating and falling in love and, well, having sex. And she tells everyone she doesn't have time for that stuff, and it's true, but. Why _can't_ she go out to a club and just _sleep_ with somebody? Why isn't she that person? Scott's done it. She knows he has.

Not tonight, though. At 9:30 PM he texts her:

_:/_

It's getting late, but she writes back anyway. _Come over?_

*

Scott lets himself in, as always. He looks good – dark jeans, good shoes, shrugging off his jacket just inside the door. The shirt's new, she thinks, can't quite place it in her mental catalogue of his nicer clothes. He _was_ on a date, then.

"How was – " she says, but before she can finish he waves his hand vaguely and rolls his eyes.

"Total bust." He comes over to the couch, flops down next to her. "It's just... Ugh, forget it." His eyes focus on the TV. "How's Brad doing? Who's left?"

"You didn't watch last week?!" she says, automatically, even though they both know of course he didn't. He gets all the channels from home just like she does, so he _could_ , but he never watches either of the _Bachelor_ s except with her. Honestly, it's kind of nice. She likes catching him up, making him laugh. The best eliminations! The worst interviews! Oh my god, can you believe she said that on TV?! Half the time he's not even really listening, he's watching the commercials, but she doesn't mind.

Tonight, though. She really thought she'd get him with this impression of Tyler Harcott (that she would never do for anyone else, okay, except maybe Jordan). But when she glances over he's chewing his nails, frowning at the carpet with that distant look that always makes her feel lost.

"Stop," she says gently, reaching over and taking his hand.

He looks over at her and smiles, seems to shake himself out of it. "Sorry," he says, his face so open that somehow, she really doesn't even know why, it makes her heart hurt. "I just wish everything didn't have to be so hard."

"I know," she says, though she's only half sure she does.

"How do you do it?" He puts his other hand over hers and scoots closer, slouches until his head almost touches her shoulder.

"Do what?"

"You know." He turns to look at her. The back of the couch has given him a slight staticky cowlick. Tessa feels herself smile. "Dating. Not dating."

"Uh... I don't know." She shrugs, takes her hand back. "I just feel like, I mean, we don't have time."

"I _know_ , but – " Scott pulls himself up, frustrated, and runs a hand through his hair like some brooding CW hero. Tessa almost laughs but manages to swallow it. She knows this Scott, energy coming off him, not angry exactly, but something. Then again, there's always energy coming off Scott. "Don't you ever just want – "

Oh. Sometimes they have conversations like this, especially lately, that stop just short of talking about sex. Tessa's not (completely) sure why it happens. They're old enough. They talk about everything else.

There's an unnatural pause, in which Scott intently watches the blonde girl on the TV, gushing about the connection she feels with Brad. Tessa can't remember if she's the hairstylist or the teacher. Which one of them liked skiing again?

She reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder, as the interview cuts to a group date. "Yeah," she admits. "I do." He doesn't say anything. "All the time," she adds wryly, thinking, if they can't talk to each other about this, then who?

" _All_ the time?" echoes Scott, with a laugh in his voice. Ugh. She gives him a slight shove, just the barest suggestion of threatening to put his nose in the coffee table. He shrugs her off, still grinning, gets up. "I need coffee. You?"

She shrugs. He disappears into the kitchen. On TV, the blonde girl is somehow already about to kiss Brad. _Maybe they really do have a connection,_ Tessa thinks. Another Molson commercial comes on. She gets up and follows Scott into the kitchen.

He's standing at the counter, shaking beans into his hand. One makes a break for it and skitters across her floor. It vanishes under her stove. "Sorry!" says Scott, immediately. They both know that's going to bother her for weeks. He looks over to see if she's mad – and catches something else on her face, she can tell, though she doesn't know what. "What?" he says, and then, "Come on, out with it."

She laughs. "I was just thinking... Never mind." He gives her a quizzical look, puts the bag of beans down and slides over to meet her by the sink. He looks down at her, expectant. She will never, ever know why she does it.

She kisses him.

*

It's only kissing. One kiss. No harm done. Scott pulls away at first, searching her face, confused – then kisses her back (of course, of course – yes), firmly, like he does this all the time, which, Tessa supposes, he does. She comes to her senses. "Oh my god," she says. "I'm sorry."

"I – " Scott looks at her. For the first time in their lives, she doesn't know what he's thinking. "No, it's – I get it. Forget it," he says, and pulls her into a hug. She hears the churn of the coffeemaker behind him, closes her eyes and thinks, _disaster averted._

But then half an hour later, on the couch, there they are again. "Look at that!" Scott crows, pointing at the television, elbowing her. "I totally called it." Tessa shakes her head, raps his ribs with her knuckles. At the same time they turn their heads and look at each other. At first they're both just grinning, and then – she nods, just a little, barely anything, basically invisible, but –

It's Scott, after all. In the space of a breath his mouth is on hers again, his hands in her hair. She presses herself into him, rumples his nice shirt trying to get it in her hands; finally finds herself clutching his shoulder in a terribly uncomfortable position, kissing him and kissing him and half wondering what she's doing and half wondering why she never did this sooner.

She's fumbling for the third button on his shirt when he says, "Wait."

"I don't want to," she says, laughing, and he laughs, too, but his hands come down and find hers, still them against his chest. He's a little flushed, his hair sticking up everywhere, but he looks serious. "Please," she says quickly, because she can tell he's gearing up to say something she won't want to hear. "Can we just not think about it for once?" _Just once,_ she thinks desperately, feeling his heart beat under their joined hands, or maybe just in her imagination. If they just do it _one time_ , she won't have to think about it anymore.

Scott hesitates. God, of all the times for him to be the practical one...!

He swallows. She's won, and they both know it. She takes her hands back, pulls her shirt off over her head, and kisses him for the look on his face.

*

"Best in the World," he says to her afterward, effectively taking that phrase out of their training lexicon forever. It's a joke, but he's not wrong. They _are_ the best team in the world. God, are they ever.

His hand drifts up along her thigh, settles warmly in the curve of her waist. They're both still pretty sweaty, but that's nothing unusual for them. He's watching her, smiling, sleepy. She rolls closer and puts her face in his neck, closes her eyes and replays it all – well, the highlights anyway. She thought she knew his body as well as her own, but she was wrong.

"Best in the World," she says back to him, into his shoulder, and pushes down the little voice inside her that says, _mistake._

**

Waking up (naked!) next to Scott is very, very strange. For all that Tessa's thought, in the secret back of her mind, about sleeping with him, she's never really thought about _sleeping_ with him. Not like this, anyway. She's never thought about lying awake, listening to him breathe. She's never thought about rolling over in the night and bumping into him, or the way he would automatically gather her into his chest when that happens. She's never, not once, thought about his face being the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes.

She's done a staggering thing.

"Hey," he says. His voice is warm and scratchy. Everything is different. "You okay?" He reaches out and tucks a curl behind her ear, so familiar, so _Scott_ , and Tessa thinks she might cry.

(The thing about Scott: she loves how well he knows her, and sometimes she also hates it.)

"Do you...want to talk about it?" he says. "We should probably talk about it."

"I'm naked," she says, apropos of nothing.

"Me too." He tips her face up, makes her look at him. There's a little bit of a smile around his mouth, and she starts to laugh. It comes out a weird, teary sound. She scoots herself into his arms, a thing she's done more times than there are stars, and fits their bodies against each other.

She's sore, a little, when she moves. It's so _real_. She feels him hard against her hip and glances up at his face.

"Morning," he says, with a half-embarrassed shrug.

"Can I..."

"Uh, yeah," a little surprised. She slides a hand down between them, just to _hold_ it. Scott's face is –

" _Tessa_ ," he says, kind of low in this way she's never heard before, and leans in to kiss her.

Needless to say, they're late to the rink that day.

*

"So," she says, her hands wrapped around her mug of hot chocolate.

"So," he says, mirroring her, leaning in.

Tessa laughs in spite of herself. "Is it weird that we're having a meeting to talk about our..." She breaks off, not sure what the end of that sentence is. Sex? Relationship?

"No," says Scott. "We obviously can't be trusted to talk about it at home."

That's definitely true. It's been six days, and all they've done is have sex. On Friday (the third night), Tessa had promised herself they would discuss it, but then Scott was kissing his way up her thigh and, well, they didn't. On Sunday (the fifth night), Scott kept getting that look like he wanted to say something serious, and each time Tessa would feel this surge of panic and do something to distract him. She's getting pretty good at that, to be honest.

But it's Tuesday now, and they can't keep avoiding it. "Okay," says Tessa. "This week has been..."

"Great," says Scott, as decisively as if they're talking about next week's schedule.

"Definitely," she agrees quickly. "But we can't keep doing this."

"No?" Scott grins, sliding easily somehow from Brisk Meeting Scott to a look that makes her want to shake him, or drag him back to the car and fuck him, or both. "Because I think this partnership shows real promise. We could go far."

"The Sex Olympics?" she says, laughing.

"We would win."

For a minute they just sit there, smiling at each other, and then Tessa looks away. Outside the diner window it's getting dark, snow coming down in flurries.

"You know I wasn't trying to start something..." she says.

"I know," he says. And then, "Look, we were both... It can just be sex. If that's what you want."

"I – "

"It's not what I – I mean, I didn't mean – you're so important to me, Tess."

"I know," she says, and she does.

Under the table, their legs are almost touching. They're always almost touching.

"I don't want us to do anything we're going to regret," she says, finally.

Scott looks down at the table. "We should probably stop," he says, to his untouched hot chocolate.

It's the right decision. It's the smart decision. It's what she wanted him to say.

 _I love you,_ she mouths, when he looks back up at her.

He rolls his eyes slightly, but smiles. _I love you too,_ he mouths back.

*

Less than two weeks later, they get silver at the Final _again_. In Sochi, where they don't want to get in the habit of coming second. Tessa feels Scott's hand on her arm while they're standing on the podium and knows all bets are off.

He glances over at her as they're putting on their guards. She jerks her chin at him, just slightly. _Yours?_ He nods.

"Oh, hey, Tessa!" says Patrick, cheerfully, when she arrives at Scott's room thirty minutes later. They hug, Tessa meeting Scott's eyes over Patrick's shoulder. He's sitting on the edge of his bed. He shrugs. Patrick looks between the two of them, opens his mouth to say something else, then closes it again. "Uh, I'll see you guys later?" he says, and leaves.

"Did you tell him?!" says Tessa, the moment the door shuts.

Scott, half coming to his feet, gestures at her to keep her voice down. "Of course not," he says, sounding annoyed. He's right. It shouldn't have even crossed her mind. They haven't talked about whether they can tell anyone, but. They're a team. He would never, not Patrick anyway, not without talking to her.

"Sorry," she says, "you're right." She pulls her jacket off and hangs it up, comes over and sits down next to him.

"I haven't told anyone," he says. "Have you?"

"No." She slides her cold hands up under his shirt. He squirms, makes a terrible pained face, and starts laughing. She tries to kiss him and gets his chin at first, because he's still laughing. He presses her down into the bed, his weight the thing that she's been missing.

*

"We need to set some ground rules," Tessa announces, staring up at the ceiling of Scott's bedroom. They both agreed that Sochi didn't count, but here they are back in Michigan, and it's the third time this week already.

"What?" says Scott. "Seriously? I thought we were stopping." He rolls up on his elbow and sees her face. "Yeah, okay."

Tessa turns onto her side and runs a finger along his arm, thinking. "Never at the rink," she says. "Or the gym." Scott frowns. "Well, maybe the gym. But you know, it's gross there."

"True," he says. "Okay. Never at our parents'."

"Ew," says Tessa.

"What?" says Scott. "You've never...?"

"No!" says Tessa, horrified. "You _have_?"

Scott shrugs. Who has he had sex with at his parents'?! "No...awkward questions," he says, with a shadow of a grin.

"Fine," she says, half amused. "No..." She hesitates. "No sleeping over."

"Really?" Scott looks startled. "You don't think that's overkill?"

"Well, it's not like we're dating, right?"

A pause, in which they don't look at each other. "Right," says Scott, finally. "Okay. No more sleeping over."

Tessa looks at his unsmiling face and feels a pang. "Okay," she says. And then, "If it starts to affect our skating – "

"Or _us_ – "

Tessa nods. "We stop. Right away."

**

At first, it goes pretty well. Really, better than Tessa could ever have expected. They have just a handful of practice days left before Christmas, and everyone's a little checked out, even Meryl and Charlie, who have never trained harder than Tessa's seen them this year. During breaks, she and Meryl make light conversation about their holiday plans. Scott plays pranks on Charlie until Tessa _has_ to help Charlie retaliate.

("You're supposed to be on my side!" says Scott, indignant, laughing.

"I'm on the side of justice," she says. He pulls her toward him, and for a second she's sure he's going to kiss her, in front of Meryl and Charlie, in front of everyone. But he doesn't, just slings his arm around her and gives her a friendly sort of half hug, half shake. She breathes.)

Back home, it's pleasantly chaotic. Tessa's whole family drives up to Ilderton to have dinner with the Moirs – two cars; they don't fit in one anymore – and she and Scott sneak off afterward to walk over to the rink. "Come on, we can't not," he says, at his mother's look. Alma shakes her head at them, but smiles.

They don't even skate, for the first time ever that Tessa can think of. They sit on the bench where they used to lace up their skates together, making out, almost breaking their rule but not.

They do practice later that week, running through "Carmen" a couple of times and trying not to meet the eyes of the people who have known them their entire lives. It's a shakier program than it was before they...you know. Tessa catches herself getting distracted, making costly technical mistakes. But it's also stronger in some ways, fiercer, more immediate. When it's good, it's really good. When it's good, and Scott looks at her and she just knows, _knows_ they're in the exact same place –

Danny comes to watch them a couple of times, his eyebrows doing all kinds of skeptical things Tessa could live without.

*

In January, they easily take Nationals, posting their best total to date, but still ten points below what Meryl and Charlie get in Omaha a week later. Second at Four Continents in February. Second at Worlds in March, in London, in front of all their friends and family. "Carmen" is the best they've ever skated it, but still.

Meryl and Charlie are having the season of their lives, and Tessa and Scott are having...what?

*

Spring is the season of touring, of taking a break, however short. Tessa and Scott usually agree they prefer to be competing, but this year it's a welcome respite. They need to regroup.

They take some time away from each other, which is to say, a day. Tessa goes to the Market with her friends; they have lunch and catch up on their lives. Well, Tessa catches up on their lives. There's really no need for her to catch them up on hers. They've seen most of her biggest moments this year on TV. Worlds, they were all even there in person. That was nice.

"How's Scott?" ventures Marie, trying to be encouraging.

"Um... I think we're gonna do that TV show thing," Tessa says, in an effort to offer up something that's neither the boring public reality nor the awkward private truth. That they almost broke their "never at our parents'" rule yesterday. That half the time now when she thinks about him her chest aches. That she's been listening to that one Rihanna song in the car, like, all the time.

"Oooooh, that's so cool," says Liz. "Are you so excited? Or is it weird?"

"Mostly weird," Tessa says, and everyone laughs. "I mean, we both kind of wanted to do it for the memories or whatever, but I..." _I don't want anyone looking too closely at us right now._

*

"Oh my god," says Scott, when she plays the song for him. "I heard this on the radio the other day, and I thought – "

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

*

June and July are about getting their heads back in the game – or, as Scott irrepressibly points out, the Games. They didn't beat Meryl and Charlie once last year, and they can't afford to be distracted. They've been building these programs since March, especially the free, but are they the right programs; will they get the job done? What are they going to wear? How many more moments can they improve, improve, improve?

"Not it," says Scott, meaning, _Let's not lose focus in the last third._

"Music," says Tessa, at that bit near the middle where they sometimes get off rhythm.

"Together," they say to each other, all the time, on the sidelines, on the ice, a reminder.

As for that other thing, well. They make more rules. Never more than two nights in a row. No talking about it except right before or after. They're friends and skaters first, and it's just sex. Just sex. Only allowed if it's not a distraction. So...it's not a distraction. Things get back to normal, ish, at least outside of their homes. Scott doesn't look at her the way he was in February. Tessa doesn't wonder if he's thinking about her on the nights they're apart. (It helps that he's not thinking about anyone else, either. All either of them is thinking about is Sochi. Redemption in Sochi. Defending their title in Sochi. One more gold in Sochi.)

Tessa is getting so good at compartmentalizing, at just thinking of it as one more thing in her routine. She needs to buy eggs, and she needs to maybe have sex with Scott today. If there's time they might order dinner, watch something together. They never sleep over, but they do kiss goodbye.

Choosing what she's allowed to think about one moment and not allowed the next...is probably good practice for the Olympics.

*

By some kind of mutual unspoken agreement, they break their rule about sleeping over on the night before Scott's twenty-sixth birthday.

"Are we getting old?" he murmurs into her neck, as they watch the clock roll over to midnight. His breath tickles. She finds his hand where it's resting on her hip and laces her fingers through his.

"Just you," she says, and feels him smile against her skin.

**

 _Don't ever sleep with your partner._ Growing up in competition change rooms, all the other girls older than her, Tessa heard this more times than she could count. She and Scott would see so many older couples – especially couples who were also _couples_ – having fights right there on the ice sometimes. They'd share an uncomfortable look, and Tessa would always secretly think how lucky they were that that would never happen to them.

And indeed, it doesn't, because they're not a couple.

"Hey, I think I know a girl you'd like," Eric Radford says to Scott, leaning across the table to be heard. They're all out for a drink after the Skate Canada banquet. "You want me to set it up?"

"Uh..." Scott hesitates. Tessa, faltering mid-conversation with the waitress, suddenly realizes his hand is on her knee. Has it been there all night? "I don't know, man," he says finally, sounding very caught off-guard. "I feel like we're just really...you know, focused on the Olympics right now."

"Of course, totally," says Eric easily. "But let me know. She lives in London, and she knows skating, so I thought – "

"Yeah!" says Scott, quickly. "I mean, I'm sure she's great. I'll definitely – I'll definitely think about it."

*

"I'm not going to go out with her," he says two hours later, having followed her into her hotel room with his maybe-we-should-talk-about-this face. "If you're worried about – "

"I'm not _worried_!" says Tessa, which is how she realizes that she is. "You should go out with her," she adds, before she can stop herself. "I mean, why wouldn't you?"

"Well – " Scott looks confused, and also a little impatient.

"Don't say it."

"Don't tell me that I can't say it!"

"Shhhh," says Tessa. God. They're in a hotel. "I'm sorry," she says. She wants to touch him, but he takes a step back when she tries. "Scott – "

"I'll see you tomorrow," he says, and leaves.

 _Ugh._ Tessa pitches herself face first onto the bed and thinks, Eric's friend can have him. Good luck to her.

Of course they non-specifically apologize to each other the next day, and of course no one's going out with anyone – it's fourteen weeks to the Olympics. Of course they hug, and Tessa asks if they're okay, and Scott says yes. But even if they're lying to each other for the first time ever, there's no lying to themselves. It's fourteen weeks to the Olympics, and they are not okay.

*

The run-up to Paris is fragile and strange. They're both being extra careful with each other, extra polite and attentive on the ice. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, or possibly just as some joke of the universe, Marina keeps reminding them that "Seasons" is about love. Their love for each other. The ups and downs in their relationship. "You skate what you feel," she says, waving between them. "You skate your feelings for each other."

It takes all of Tessa's self-control not to comment that she's pretty sure the Olympic judges would _not_ like to watch them skate their current feelings for each other. She catches Scott's eye, and for a second she expects them both to burst out laughing. But Scott just sets his jaw, says, "Okay," and reaches out to take her hand.

Off the ice, they're still mad at each other and, weirdly, also still having sex. Tessa thinks every time that she should probably, definitely put a stop to it – _this will be the last time_ –

Or not.

*

Four years ago, their Christmas Eve training day was the best practice they'd had in two years. This year, without question, it's one of the worst. It just feels like every single thing they do is off, including stuff they nailed in Japan two weeks ago, and Tessa keeps flashing back to Marnie McBean's advice – _don't expect yourself to be perfect; don't expect Scott to be perfect_ – and thinking, forget perfect. At this rate, they're going to get worse and worse and just be terrible. An embarrassment to themselves. Their coaches. Canada.

Meryl and Charlie, on the other hand. Marina sends them home early after what feels like the thousandth near-immaculate run-through of their free. It's Christmas, after all, and they deserve to spend it with their families, less than an hour away. "Um – merry Christmas!" says Meryl to them both, as she's gathering up her things. It's a little awkward, over-bright, but the first real effort any of them have made in months.

"Merry Christmas," says Tessa, forcing a smile. Scott says nothing, and he's too far away to elbow. But who can blame him, really? There's nothing worse than being pitied by _Meryl and Charlie_. They were terrible at taking their sympathy in 2009, and they're terrible at it now.

Marina gives up on them after another hour. "You are not connecting!" she says, jabbing her finger at them for emphasis. So Russian. So reproachful. So right, not that it would take an expert to know at this point. Tessa has been wondering for months if Marina suspects. Some days she feels like there's a neon sign over their heads: _DOING IT_. But if Marina knows, or guesses, she's not letting on. She just skewers them with that look of hers and says, "You fix this."

They've been given a lot of instructions over the years. Sometimes very tall orders. Coaches will say things, ask you to try things, just to see if you _can_. Marina has suggested things that she didn't think were possible, like the Goose. Until now, Tessa never thought anything wasn't possible, as long as she had Scott.

*

Sometimes she thinks they're the most different people in the world, and maybe they won't even be friends once this is all over. And sometimes she's lying in her bed on Christmas morning, feeling deeply miserable and alone, and the doorbell rings.

It's 6:05 AM. Much later than she'd get up to go to the rink, but much earlier than she was planning to go to the gym today. The sun isn't even up.

So of course, it can only be Scott. She shuffles to get the door, prepared to be completely annoyed, but then. There he is, with snow in his hair and smiling at her like he hasn't, not _really_ , since October. He holds up a box of pancake mix in one hand and a bag of chocolate chips in the other. "You have eggs, right?"

"Uh...yes." She takes the items from him and watches, slightly dumbfounded, as he unlaces his boots and steps out of them.

"What?" he says, straightening up and catching her staring. He chucks an arm around her and steers her toward the kitchen. "Christmas," he says, pulling all the bowls out of her cabinet to get to the biggest one, "is for family."

*

It's so funny how things can suddenly fall apart with them, and just as quickly come back together. How one day of pancakes, of skipping the gym and walking around the deserted town together instead, can ease the shaky feeling Tessa's had in her heart for two months.

She takes his hand at an intersection, and shrugs when he looks at her in surprise.

Later, they Skype their families. "Oh, I'm so glad you guys are together," says Alma, when Scott holds his phone up to show Tessa beside him. "I wondered." Tessa's mom, too, asks right away if Scott is there. He's washing dishes at the time but dries his hands and comes over to wave, to put an arm around her.

"Don't worry," he says. "We're taking good care of each other."

And so they are, or at least that's how Tessa is reminded that they should be. By January they're skating as well as they ever have, gearing up for their last ever Nationals (probably). Meryl and Charlie look _so_ good on the other side of the rink, but Tessa's trying as hard as she possibly can not to focus on them – to focus on Scott instead.

Like when he misses a step in their short and looks afterward like he might kick something. She knows what he's thinking: the same thing she thinks every time the tiniest thing happens, no matter how insignificant (nothing's insignificant), no matter how much of a fluke (because what if it's not?) – _that would've cost us the Olympics. This is the difference between silver and gold._

She skates after him, taps the back of her hand against his, almost but not quite threading their fingers. For a second she's sure he'll pull away, like he would've, say, ten years ago if she'd ever had the courage to go after him then. But instead he puts his arm around her shoulders, and she puts hers around his waist, and together they stroke back to the boards. Marina nods when she sees them, as if to say, _yes. There's my Tessa and Scott._

Thirty-two days to the Olympics.

*

"Here's a question," says Scott, propping himself up on his pillow. "If we're the champions, but they're the favorites, who's the underdog?"

Tessa stares at him, then starts laughing. "Ummmm. The Russians?"

Scott makes a face that's half _good point_ , half _you know what I meant_. She reaches out a hand and runs it idly down his abs. "What are you doing?" he says, trying to wiggle away.

"I've just always wanted to do that." It's true.

He shakes his head at her and rolls back onto his back. She can almost feel the tension humming through him, all the time now, whether they're on or off the ice. Nineteen days to the Olympics. At least she never has to ask what he's thinking about.

The truth is that they're both afraid to say it out loud, what they actually think will happen in Sochi in three, four weeks. Will they really come second? The numbers say yes. But it's unbearable to think of coming this far and going all the way there just to _lose_ , so they never talk about it, try not to even think about it. They spend half their time telling Canada how determined they are to go for the gold, half their time saying of course it's an honor simply to compete, and none of their time actually discussing it with each other. Sometimes Tessa wants to, but she knows what Scott would say: _we can't do anything about it now. Let's just go out there and skate our best. It's you and me, T._

Tessa has thousands of questions: but doesn't it make you crazy, too, to think about losing? _Yes._ What if our best isn't good enough? _It has to be,_ she thinks he'd say, or possibly, _then we'll get better._ What happens when this is all over?

What happens when this is all over?

*

Sometimes when she's leaving his place, she wishes he'd ask her to stay. Sometimes he looks like he wants to, but he never actually does.

Eight days to the Olympics.

*

The night before their flight to Russia, the COC puts them up in a hotel in Toronto. They order room service, and Tessa doesn't complain when Scott won't stop changing the channel, and Scott doesn't complain when Tessa eats off his plate. She wonders if he's feeling it in his bones the way she's feeling it in hers: it will never be like this again. Sure, they'll tour. Sure, they'll hang out – maybe. But after this Games the odds are good that it will never again be just the two of them, day in and day out, reaching for the next thing, together.

"I don't want to be sad," she says to herself, and only realizes she's actually said it audibly when Scott looks over at her, curious.

"Why are you sad?" he says, and then, "Oh."

"I just want us to be _us_ as long as possible, okay?" She sits up and reaches for his hand, though she's not sure why – pinky swear? Shake on it? "Let's – let's not be sad until afterwards."

"Excuse you, I plan to be happy afterwards," he says, picking up the remote and switching from a Sleep Country commercial to what appears to be a show about fishing. When she doesn't say anything, he glances over, sees her face, and relents. "We'll still be _us_ afterwards," he says, giving her hand a squeeze. "We'll always be _us_." A pause, in which he changes the channel again. "Oh, look. It's your show."

Tessa looks over at the TV. It's _Project Runway_.

"Could you go on this show?" Scott asks, with genuine interest. "I thought you were excited to do...you know, fashion. And school and stuff."

"I am," she says, and it's true, she is. But lately when she imagines not seeing him every day –

"Hey," he says, frowning at her. "What happened to, 'I don't want to be sad'?" He tugs her closer, till he can get both arms around her. "Eyes on the prize, T. Don't get all mushy on me now."

" _You're_ the mushy one," she says defensively, half-watching as Tim Gunn examines someone's ribbon-bedecked mannequin. She's seen this one before.

"I know," says Scott, laughing. "That's what I'm saying." There's a long pause. She feels him press his face into the nape of her neck. "I'll be sad with you afterwards," he promises, quietly.

**

The thing about the Olympics is, until the last possible moment, you don't _really_ believe it won't happen. Even if you're placing, like, 17th, somewhere in there you're still secretly picturing a gold medal. It's how you keep going every day.

They don't skate their best in the team event, which is disappointing, but not irrecoverable. "Test run," says Scott, bracingly. Tessa watches Patrick and Kaetlyn out there skating their hearts out all by themselves, and thinks for approximately the millionth time that she could never do this alone.

They kill the short. Scott is so happy that he momentarily abandons her, does a little dance on the ice all by himself, while she laughs and the audience roars. When he comes back and sweeps her up in his arms, she feels electric, dizzy, complete. They do their bows and their twirls and she thinks, it could happen. It could still happen.

But, you know. It doesn't.


	2. Pyeongchang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUN FACT: When I started writing this story, I thought it was going to be two roughly even halves, each perhaps around 3k?
> 
> HAHAHAHAHA.
> 
> Anyway, my apologies to anyone who thought Part Two would be out sooner. I DID TOO, BELIEVE ME. Had 5k written when I posted Part One, so I thought...surely it’s more than halfway done? OBVIOUSLY I WAS MISTAKEN, PART ONE IS MERELY THE PROLOGUE TO PART TWO, ETC. Many thanks to all the usual suspects for sustaining me with their enthusiasm as this story grew and grew and I stared at it in increasing horror, and for betaing it over the last two weeks. <3 Also, special trash thanks to [flutz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flutz), without whom I’d almost certainly have LEFT the trash upon finishing this, but instead... Well, let’s just say you can thank/blame her if you get any more VM fic out of me.
> 
> #trash friends #trash life #helpless in the trash #HELP!!!!

"When I think about Sochi, it's not the color of the medal I remember," Tessa insists, over and over. It's a lie, of course. But it's also the truth.

After they skated their last skate and had their last kiss-and-cry – or at least, that's what they thought it was at the time – there were two more teams to sit through, then Meryl and Charlie. Maybe twenty-five minutes, all told, but space enough for an entire lifetime's worth of emotions. Tessa remembers that neither of them _could_ actually sit – that she hovered uncertainly in the back hallway, on and off pretending to be fascinated by an evacuation sign on the wall, and that Scott paced within a five-foot radius of her, always staying close.

("Here," he said, passing her a bottle of water. And, "You were brilliant out there.")

She remembers hearing the number, a year of guesswork turned suddenly, deafeningly real, and that there was a camera right on top of them, so they smiled and hugged. But then when they got to see Meryl and Charlie, the look on their faces was like a memory of Vancouver, and everyone was hugging everyone, and to Tessa's surprise she _was_ more happy than sad.

She remembers that they were laughing as they waited to go out for the ceremony, but not what they were laughing about.

She remembers the flowers (lovely). The poncho (of course). And the way Scott looked at her when they were standing by the boards afterwards, just for a second between photo ops. He wanted to kiss her, and she knew it, and he knew she knew it. Because, oh right. What Tessa mostly remembers about Sochi is how they fucked up their last Olympics by sleeping together.

**

There is a hierarchy of happiness when you're on the podium. Gold first, bronze second, silver dead last. A bronze medal is almost always a huge achievement, a stepping stone to greater things or a hard-won victory after years of being overmatched. A silver medal is, you know. Just a reminder that you're the #1 loser.

That's not all Tessa feels when she holds the silver medals from Sochi, of course. They still represent some great skates, days where she and Scott gave it everything they had, and what it meant to them to skate for Canada. A big, big thing that they spent their whole lives working towards together. But like every silver medalist, she goes home thinking about all the things she maybe could have done differently. Or, in their case, the one thing she maybe, definitely shouldn't have done at all.

And she knew it at the time, but she did it anyway.

On the plane home, they don't say very much to each other. Tessa wedges herself against the window and pretends to be asleep.

*

The first forty-eight hours are gloriously, miraculously quiet. Tessa holes up in her bedroom at home and reads, and naps at odd times, and feels passionate relief every time she opens a door and no one is there. No coaches, no teammates, no Skate Canada officials. No cameras. No Scott.

She shuffles into the kitchen for snacks, and her mom watches her carefully. "I'm fine," she says, even though she hasn't technically been asked. "Just tired."

On day three, she goes to the gym. Everyone is so nice there, so eager to say hi and give their congratulations. A lot of people tell her that they wish she and Scott had won. One woman says, "You looked so beautiful out there, the two of you. I don't know when I'll ever see something so beautiful again." Tessa goes home having barely worked out, her heart very full. She takes out her phone to text Scott and winds up just staring at his last message, from when he came to pick her up before the gala in Moscow.

_i'm here_

Tessa feels her eyes sting, puts the phone face-down on her nightstand, and determinedly reads fifty more pages of _The Goldfinch_.

Later, her mom finds her crying and says, "Oh, honey. It's okay."

"I know it is," says Tessa thickly, and it's true. The Olympics don't matter to their families or their friends, not really. They only ever cared because it mattered so much to Tessa and Scott.

Her mother sits down on the bed next to her and rests a hand on her back. "No," she says gently. "I mean it's okay to be sad."

*

On Friday she meets him at the rink in Ilderton, bright and early. He's already there when she arrives, twizzling across the ice all by himself. For a minute she just stands there, taking in the sight of him. He's such a beautiful skater. She never gets to just _watch_ him.

He comes over while she's lacing up her skates, skidding to a stop in front of the gate and grinning down at her. "You're late," he teases. "Is this how it's gonna be now? No Olympics, you just don't care?"

Tessa gives him a look, which fazes him not at all, and steps onto the ice for a hug.

He holds her very tightly. She feels him breathing and automatically tries to catch his rhythm. "You missed me," he says into her hair, somehow managing to sound both smug and surprised.

They do two laps around the rink, hand in hand, before Tessa feels like she's ready to talk. Scott seems in his own world, calmer than she's ever known him, and not bothered that she's quiet. "Oh god, it's so weird being home," she says, and pours out the story of going to the gym.

"Well, it's...yeah. I know," he says. The only person who really does know.

He tugs her out into center ice, and for a good hour they just _play_. Chasing each other around, trying to outdo each other with increasingly absurd spins, improvising to "Call Me Maybe," because why not? Laughing until Tessa's sides hurt.

Afterward, they greet the small crowd that's collected and then walk out together to Tessa's car. "I forgot it could be like this," she says. "I think I'm sore from having too much fun."

Scott grins, but mercifully refrains from making a sex joke. She wonders if he, too, thought it and then felt weird. "Out of shape already?" he says instead. And then, "Just think – so much more where that came from. Never have to compete again if we don't want to."

Technically, they haven't retired yet. They're just...taking some time.

"You should come over for dinner later," says Scott. "My mom wants to see you."

"Okay."

He puts out a fist and she bumps it, a reflex. Then he leans over, and for a split second Tessa's sure he's going to kiss her goodbye. Which he does, but only on the cheek – and then walks off, shouldering his skates, leaving her feeling the oddest combination of disappointed and relieved.

**

At the end of March, they pack up their Canton homes and say goodbye to Arctic Edge. For now, and probably forever. Tessa finds a button under her couch that she's 99% sure came off one of Scott's shirts. She pockets it with the idea of showing him later, but then when she actually sees him, it doesn't seem like something they can laugh about yet.

_"Remember that time we hooked up for like a year and a half, and maybe sacrificed our gold medal for our stupid hormones?"_

Yeah, it'll be a while.

She's not one of those people who thinks sex automatically ruins a career or anything. And she knows there are probably a lot of factors in how Meryl and Charlie managed to smoke them these last two seasons. But she also knows how narrow the margin was at some of those competitions. And maybe she and Scott only needed to be a _little_ bit better. A _little_ bit sharper. And a distraction is a distraction.

*

"Ugh, too depressing," Scott says, regarding the millionth song they've listened to tonight. "We're not in mourning."

Tessa skips to the next one, then immediately skips to the next one after that. "Too much like 'Stay,'" she says by way of explanation, making a face.

"Maybe we've just done all the songs there are," Scott jokes, getting up to wash the dishes. They're hanging out in his kitchen after dinner, his parents having gone out to a movie. And trying to pick music for a new program before their first _Stars on Ice_ rehearsal, which is...very soon.

"Come on, there's got to be something," says Tessa, who's never left an assignment this late in her life, and wouldn't recommend the experience so far. "Let's go older."

"You always want to go older."

"Fine, let's do Eric Church then," she says, very slightly wanting to throw something at him. "What's that one where he crashes the car and his friend is paralyzed? That'll be perfect."

The water stops running. Scott turns around and looks at her, raises an eyebrow. She opens her mouth to apologize, but before she can: "Probably a little too specific," he says, impressively deadpan. "But I like the way you're thinking."

He wipes his hands on his jeans and comes back over to the computer, leaning over her. He smells like dish soap and his parents' house and – just – himself. She puts her face in his sleeve while he clicks around. "Oh, look," he says, a smile in his voice. She opens her eyes, not that she would need to to know this song.

It's "Into the Mystic." She hasn't heard it since Sochi.

Sometimes it feels like her life is divided into two halves now. Before Sochi and After Sochi. And for all the optimistic things she and Scott keep saying on morning shows and the radio, she has no idea what After Sochi is supposed to be like. Except that they don't talk about Before Sochi.

"It's okay," he says. "We'll figure it out."

She takes his hand when he offers it, and they dance.

*

They tour Japan, and then Canada. They have ramen in the Ginza district, and take laughing pictures at the extremely crowded top of the Skytree, and see so many things they never had time to even think about before. They perform, just _perform!_ without worrying about judges or scores or being the best. They sign probably hundreds of autographs. And they sit together in the back of the bus and talk about how secretly scary it is to not know for sure anymore what their lives will hold next season – or, as their non-skating friends would say, next year.

And somehow all it takes is a trip to the other side of the world and back for Tessa to realize that this, not any medal, was the thing she was really afraid of losing.

**

It's not a line – their relationship really is "unique." More bluntly, sometimes it's just plain weird.

In the summer of 2014, they don't talk much when they're apart. Not that they're ever apart for long – between interviews and appearances and practice – but Scott's not the best texter, so sometimes a whole day will go by that she doesn't hear from him at all.

And then there are the days when she's seen him, technically, but it doesn't really feel like she's spent any time with him.

"I don't know," she says, when her mom asks her how Scott is doing. "Good, I think. He seems good."

"How long has he been dating that girl?"

Tessa laughs. "I have no idea," she confesses. "I think you might have more information than I do."

They're on a riverboat in Guangzhou, China, by the time she feels like she wants to ask him about it.

"You didn't tell me you were seeing someone." She casts a look over at him, smiles so he knows, it's not like she's mad or anything.

"Should I?" he says, like he genuinely doesn't know. "It's not that serious." They pass into the shadow of another bridge, look up into its rainbow lights together. It rolls over Tessa, a completely new thought: they have a _choice_. Do they want to be friends?

*

For the record, this girl he's "not that serious" about – he goes on to date her for over a year.

Tessa dates, too, sometimes. "Should we go on a double date?" she asks him, just once.

" _No_ ," says Scott, with such long-suffering conviction that Tessa bursts out laughing.

"All right, just asking."

*

It's fun to go to camp and see everyone else training. Also, a little strange.

The leaves turn, and they're not competing, and some days Tessa wakes up and it's like the sun has risen in the west. They go to Skate Canada and to Nationals, where they...commentate.

("Do you feel qualified to do this?" Scott asks her, under his breath.

"Nope!" says Tessa, and then neither of them can quite keep a straight face for the rest of the segment.)

In between trips and events and other people's competitions: Christmas 2014 is leisurely. For the first time in a decade – no pressure to rush back to Michigan. There is no Michigan. Tessa almost misses it.

They sit by the fire and talk about all the songs they want to skate to. No rules – the sky's the limit! They watch music videos and poll their friends by text message and, eventually, make a list of the top five choreographers they'd like to work with.

*

On the one-year anniversary of their Sochi free dance, they're on a plane home from Switzerland. It's a great flight, if there is such a thing. Scott orders those tiny liquor bottles, and they toast to their first year as people with lives.

"Oh, maybe it should've been champagne," he says, after the fact.

"No, these are more fun." Tessa holds up her little Jack Daniel's bottle, grinning. "It's like I'm a giant!" She opens her mouth wide, threatening to eat it.

"People really don't know about this side of you," says Scott, shaking his head. She gives him a hopeful look, and, as she knew he would, he hands over his bottle as well, so she can have one in each hand and admire them simultaneously. They are so cute.

She looks up to find Scott watching her with the strangest expression.

But then he says, briskly, "So do you miss it?" and she's sure she must have imagined it.

"I do," she says. "I mean, it's nice to have...time..."

"Right."

"But it's a _lot_ of time." Scott's face breaks into something between a smile and a laugh. Tessa puts the mini-bottles down and rests a hand on his wrist. "Let's keep checking in, okay?" she says. "I mean. It doesn't even have to just be about skating."

"Okay," he says. Though she can never quite tell if he means it.

She climbs over him to go back to the galley again; she's obsessed with these little chocolate biscuits they have that come in packets of two.

Later, when she's embarrassed to keep going back for more, Scott goes and charms the flight attendant out of like six packets at once.

Then they watch _Big Hero 6_ together – they only watch movies together on planes – and Tessa looks over and sees Scott crying, and just loves him so much, she honestly thinks the bottom will drop out of her heart.

*

In March of 2015, they give a speech at Laurier in Waterloo. A "keynote address," technically. The school puts them up in a hotel, even though, frankly, he could've gone back to Ilderton and she could've gone back to Toronto, where she's staying for Fashion Week. Scott, who is not at his most focused this evening, lies on her bed while she's retouching her makeup and wonders aloud who came up with the word "keynote."

"Google it," says Tessa, but of course, he doesn't.

Afterwards, on a whim, they take a driving tour of their old rinks. Names have changed. Buildings have changed. Eventually they wind up parked in front of the Aud, just sitting there in the fluorescent semi-darkness, looking at it. A thousand gray cold mornings come back to Tessa at once – waking up in the back of the car, looking over and seeing Scott waking up, too.

"All right, we're being creepy," he says, in the present. He puts the car back in drive and makes their way out of the parking lot. Tessa turns her head and watches as the whole building comes back into view, then begins to recede. He reaches over and puts a hand on her leg, turning onto East. "I know," he says. "It all started here."

Technically, it didn't. But she knows what he means. This city an hour out from London, its many rinks – this is where they started working toward something real: a new goal every week, every year. The place they learned to be a team. Their first home away from home, where she began to understand that, anywhere in the world she went, there was one person who would always be there.

"We're getting sentimental in our old age," she says, carefully light.

*

They're in Calgary on Tessa's twenty-sixth birthday.

"How Olympian," says Scott.

"Yes, I planned it that way," says Tessa, winking.

*

In June, Tessa finally gets to meet Kaitlyn, the phantom girlfriend. She is very nice. Not that Tessa thought she wouldn't be, of course.

At the end of July, they drive from Beijing out to see the Great Wall – about two hours, counting nightmarish traffic. Over low-volume Chinese radio they tackle the big questions: how, what, why. "Forget about the medals," says Scott, and then, at the look on her face, "I mean, just for a minute." And later, Tessa: "Let's just pretend there's no Olympics. For a second." _What's the dance you've always wanted to do? Is there a song you always dreamed we'd skate to, but we never did? Who do you want to do this with?_ ("You, obviously," says Scott, half joking, half genuinely bemused. "Well, that's non-negotiable," says Tessa. "I meant coaches.")

Three weeks later, mid-Ex, they make it official. At a bar in Toronto in sticky August, between interruptions from tourists. Tessa wanted to do hot chocolate, but Scott said, "No, this is a grown-up decision."

He gets them two beers, and they sit side-by-side in a booth in total silence. Tessa worries at hers until the label starts coming off, then puts it down on a coaster and watches it sweat.

"So we're doing this?" says Scott, finally.

"...Yes," says Tessa slowly. Then, "Wait." And then, taking a deep breath, "Yes. But – "

"There have to be some rules?" says Scott, sounding tired.

"No," says Tessa, and then, "I mean, yes, but not like that."

It is the closest they have ever come to talking about it. Scott turns to face her, leaning on the table, looking so serious and expectant that Tessa would laugh if she weren't so terrified.

"I just mean..." she says, choosing every word like it's her last, "we both have to really want it."

"We do," says Scott, as if it's simple. And maybe it is.

**

The clock starts.

Summer vanishes into fall, is buried under a seemingly endless series of non-skating events. All these commitments packed in before the holiday season, all of which she apparently agreed to at some point. Her jewelry line comes out. She does some pretty cool shoots. But nothing is as exciting as the dinner they have with Marie-France and Patrice, mid-October.

Soon, soon, they'll be back in the game.

Carefully, they tell first their families, then their friends. No one seems as surprised as Tessa would've thought. Humph. They could at least pretend.

She starts trying to log more ice time, rebuild her gym routine where it's possible, ease back into eating super healthily whenever she's not out. Scott's doing the same. They commiserate via text message: she'll send him a bunch of exercise and celebration emojis; he'll reply with a photo of a salad, a smiley face, and a frowny face. Sometimes a couple of exclamation points, which always makes her smile.

They meet on the ice as often as they can, but spend more time talking than training. They're both bursting with ideas. If they're apart a few days, they'll talk on the phone. Once, they get so involved in discussing the top ten programs they _wouldn't_ do – when they finally hang up, Tessa, aching from laughing, looks at the clock and sees it's 1:00 AM.

As it turns out, when you really love something, it just doesn't get old.

*

"I'm going to miss this," she confesses, at the rink one night, kind of late.

"I don't think that's going to be a problem for a while," says Scott, shooting her an amused look.

"I mean _this_ ," she says, coming up next to him, bumping him with her elbow. "Just you and me. On the ice. Figuring it out. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally looking forward to – I can't _wait_ to go to Montreal next year. But..."

It's hard to put into words. How happy and safe and _brave_ she feels, when it's just the two of them doing their thing. How magical it's been at times, this empty year, creating together with no one looking over their shoulders; and how her dearest hope is that they can carry this feeling with them, all the way to 2018.

It's hard to put into words, but of course she doesn't have to.

"Come on," he says, his voice very warm. "We should try that lift again."

*

In December, probably, Scott breaks up with Kaitlyn. "Probably," because he never talked about her much to begin with, and he certainly doesn't tell Tessa when it happens. They're pretty much back to talking every day at this point, but apparently, not about this. It's a couple of days before Christmas, and – seriously – this is how she finds out:

"How was the wedding?" (He's just gone to yet another wedding. They've been to so many weddings this year between them, it's kind of ridiculous.)

"It was good." Scott pauses in lacing up his skates, rummages out his phone, and obligingly flips through a couple of pictures for her. "You know. It was a wedding."

"Did Kaitlyn have fun?"

"Uh..." Scott turns away from her to replace his phone, then becomes extremely absorbed in his laces. "She wasn't there."

Oh. "She didn't go with you?" says Tessa, confused.

"No, that would've been weird," says Scott, "because we broke up."

"What?! When?"

"A little while ago." He gives his laces a final tug, then gets to his feet. "Ready?"

"Do you want to talk about it?" says Tessa, still trying to recover from the impact of this news.

"Not even a little."

*

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" she asks again half an hour later, unable to help herself.

" _Tess_ ," he says, and she can tell he's not quite annoyed yet, but he will be. "Leave it."

*

New Year's Day, 2016. She's at brunch at Midori's when he finally replies to her midnight text message.

_good morning_  
_guess what_

Under the table, she writes back. _What?_

_i think it's gonna be a good year :)_

God.

Midori leans over, evidently suspecting something from the look on Tessa's face. "He means skating," says Tessa quickly, before Midori even gets a chance to read the message – which, Tessa realizes immediately, is a fatal mistake.

" _I_ know that," says Midori, who looks like she's trying not to laugh, "but do _you_ know that?" Tessa feels warmth in her cheeks and knows she must be blushing like crazy. "He's single again, isn't he?"

"How do you – " Seriously, is there some kind of Scott News channel that everyone gets but her?

"You should bring him to the wedding." (Yes. Midori is also getting married. Everyone is getting married.) "Open bar! I swear, if the two of you don't finally hook up, I'll consider the whole thing a – "

Midori stops. Tessa can _see_ the moment she guesses.

And that, for those keeping score at home, is how Tessa blows their secret after successfully hiding it for three years.

*

The first half of 2016 is a blur of travel, training, and feeling very slightly guilty for not having told Scott that she accidentally told Midori. (And then less accidentally afterwards, because of course Midori wasn't going to let that slide and not ask about a million follow-up questions.) Tessa half rationalizes it as, look, neither of them wants to talk about it, so why bring it up, and half just tries to pretend it never happened.

"What's going on with you?" Scott asks, peering at her. They're at Worlds in Boston, watching warm-ups and getting ready to record a bunch of interviews.

"What do you mean?" says Tessa, with the precise casualness of a person who's been preparing for this question for three months.

"I don't know, you just seem kind of in your head." He puts an arm around her and gives her a squeeze. Automatically, she reaches over and closes her hand over his. _Don't go._ He doesn't.

"Hey, look," she says. It's Gabi and Guillaume, down on the ice. For a minute they just stand there, more one person than two, watching. Then she turns her head to look at him, and he grins.

_Do you think we can take them?_

She grins, too. "Bring it on," she says, and the look on his face is everything.

*

They move to Montreal.

**

It's such a joy to fall back into full-time training. It really is. They leave their first official day laughing, bumping into each other on purpose, all the way to their cars. Tessa touches Scott's hand and looks at him sideways, and knows that they're both the happiest they've been in months.

("Are we weird?" she says, chucking her bag in her passenger seat, then leaning up against the door. She's been smiling so hard since they got off the ice, she's surprised her face doesn't hurt.

"Yeah, just a little nuts," says Scott, beaming.)

Here are the things that are the same: the kick in her chest when she steps onto the ice to try something new. The frisson of doubt, chased by excitement, when she looks across the rink and sees Gabi and Guillaume where Meryl and Charlie used to be. The feeling of Scott's hand in hers, always, forever.

Here are the things that are different: the smell of the rink. She doesn't know why, but every rink has its own specific cold, damp smell. An every-morning smell. Marie-France and Patrice, and how it's like training with friends now, instead of training with their slightly scary Russian aunt. And the big one – how she never, ever wonders this time if this is really where she wants to be.

*

She puts off asking him to Midori's wedding, which is ridiculous, because it's not like they've never gone to a wedding together before (please). It's not weird. He knows Midori – though not very well – and, more to the point, sometimes it's just nice to have a buddy. They do so many things together just because. This is just another one of those things. Friend things. Nothing weird about it.

Except for the fact that, ever since New Year's, Tessa _has_ felt a little weird about it. About the curious looks they get sometimes at Gadbois. About how Midori went straight to _you two should hook up at my wedding._ About how she hasn't quite been able to shake that image since.

July shades into August, and she still hasn't asked him. Midori comes to visit for the weekend, claiming she needs to get away before the last-minute wedding madness begins. They meet up with Scott for a quick coffee in between bouts of window shopping, and Tessa is desperately nervous that Midori will somehow give away that she _knows_. Of course Midori doesn't; she behaves herself perfectly, in fact, and leaves Tessa wondering how it is that everyone in the world has a better poker face than she does. She permits herself to relax. And then:

"I'll see you at the wedding?" Midori says, as they're standing up to hug goodbye, and Tessa realizes with horror that she never mentioned she hasn't asked him.

"Uh – yeah," says Scott, slightly uncertainly, glancing at Tessa. Like when one of them says something unexpected in an interview, and the other has to decide whether to back it up or walk it back. "Remind me when it is again?" says Scott, almost convincingly.

"Two weeks from now?" says Midori, now also turning to look curiously at Tessa.

Scott snaps his fingers. "Of course," he says, for all the world as though he's remembering something he actually knew about. Tessa presses a hand to her mouth as Midori turns back to Scott, flashing back to every April Fool's Day of her entire life, and it's all she can do not to laugh hysterically. Scott, avoiding her eyes, puts a hand on Midori's shoulder. "Sorry," he says easily. "You know us. Back in training. All the days just blur together."

*

_so i hear i'm going to a wedding 2 wks from now??_  
_i thought i was going camping_

_Oh god, sorry about that. You don't have to come!_  
_Midori just thought I was bringing you_  
_Long story_  
_[shrug emoji] [bride emoji] [blushing emoji] [laughing crying emoji]_

Oh god, what is she even trying to say? She should just move to an isolated village in France and hide there forever.

*

He really does come to the wedding. Because he's Scott. When she asks about the camping trip, he just shrugs. "It's fine," he says. "They won't miss me."

The truth is, maybe she wouldn't have either. She's a bridesmaid for the first time since Casey’s wedding, and while she's definitely got fewer responsibilities than any other bridesmaid, she's still running around most of the day. By the time she finally catches up to him at the reception – looking very dapper and browsing the hors d'oeuvres – the idea of hooking up with anyone, let alone Scott, seems not only distant but ridiculous.

She puts an apologetic arm around him. "Are you dead bored?" she asks, wrinkling her nose.

"No," he says, although she's pretty sure he's lying. "I mean, free food, right?"

She laughs. "Right."

"I'm just surprised you wanted me," he says, selecting a tiny taco and looking at it with interest.

"Well, I – " _didn't,_ she almost says, but manages not to, because that would be rude, and also, maybe, a lie. And they're not supposed to lie to each other.

Which is why later, after a lot of dancing and mingling and champagne, she finally confesses about letting their secret out into the world. And Scott – laughs.

"You're not mad?" says Tessa, completely wrong-footed. They've pulled some chairs out behind the tent, and it's dark out here, and much quieter – the crickets almost louder than "Uptown Funk." She can't quite see Scott's face, but. He definitely laughed. Is still laughing, in fact.

"Sorry," he says eventually. "It's just the way you said it. 'It was an accident! She guessed!' Of course I'm not mad. It's fine."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, Midori's not going to call up the _Star_ or anything. She'll keep it on the...you know. As long as your next move isn't Instagramming it to your millions of fans, who cares?"

 _Who cares._ "I don't have millions of fans," says Tessa, because she doesn't know what else to say.

"No?" says Scott. Inside, a new song starts playing. Something slower, that Tessa recognizes but can't name. It's almost the end of the night. Scott gets to his feet, reaches out and pulls her up into his arms. "You should," he says, sincerely. He kisses the side of her head, and she just – well, if skating doesn't work out, there's always the Emotionally Confusing Olympics.

Gold medal, Virtue and Moir. Rest of the field, not even close.

*

The thing is...skating _is_ working out. Returning to competition is just about everything they imagined it could be. When they go to the Autumn Classic in late September, Tessa's as nervous as she's ever been for a competition in her life – throws up before she's even left the house that morning. Scott is nervous, too – hardly says a word to her the whole way there. At the rink they stick close to one another like they're back in juvenile, and when it's finally time to sync up and get in the zone, it takes the pressure of Scott's hand on her back for Tessa to realize that she's _talking_ , half-formed sentences, things to remember, to fear.

"I love you," he says, like he's afraid she might forget.

And then it's Tessa who can't speak, just nods fervently and closes her eyes, and they hold on to each other like there's nothing else in the world.

And then they're back on the ice, and it's just, oh, _fun_. And they clear second place by nearly thirty points, and everyone's all admiration, saying things like, "Was there ever any doubt?!" and, "You two haven't missed a step!" Tessa's half thrilled, half embarrassed – all right, mostly thrilled – and she looks over at Scott, and he gives her the fleetingest wink.

She turns back to the interviewer, smiling, thinking, _You have no idea._

*

The thing is...she never thought they would get to have this. They've had winning, and they've had getting along, and they've had having fun – but they've never had all three at the same time, month after month, for an entire season.

She never thought they would get to break Meryl and Charlie's Sochi record.

She never thought they would finally get to stand on top of the podium at the end of the Grand Prix.

She never thought before that it was possible for nothing to hurt, for them to enjoy each other, almost every single second, all season long. For Scott to really become her full-time best friend.

In the fall of 2016, they get to have windy Saturdays exploring Montreal together, talking about, well, almost everything. They get to have laughing about their mistakes (!) and then fixing them, and that feeling of being so totally on the same page that nothing could possibly go wrong. They get to have the savage happiness of winning, Tessa's favorite feeling in the entire world.

Sometimes it's completely unimaginable to her that nobody else _ever_ gets to have this. Scott, that is. The most generous, determined, passionate person she knows. That she can be the only person alive who gets to wake up every morning and know she's going to see his face today.

Sometimes all the bad things that have ever happened between them feel as far away as if she dreamed them, and then other times she wonders if she's dreaming right now.

He's kind of different than he used to be, too. Sometimes – it's like somehow he grew up when she wasn't looking, although she could swear she hasn't looked away for a second.

*

The thing is: if you had asked Tessa at age eleven, or nineteen, or twenty-three, hands-down a season like this would've been the thing she wanted most in the world.

The thing is: they've never once been alone together in either of their Montreal homes, and that's not an accident.

The thing is: sometimes he touches her – okay, _all the time_ he touches her – and she wants to jump him so badly, she honestly thinks she may die.

So, you know, things are _almost_ going exactly according to plan...?

**

After Worlds (yes, they won), she's arranged to meet her mom in Paris for a week, because she _needs_ seven days away from Scott, and because Paris is always a good idea.

He hugs her goodbye at the Helsinki airport, right before they part ways to catch their separate flights. Pressed into his shoulder, she feels her heart contract, which, what's wrong with her? It's one week.

"All right, I'll see you, kiddo," he says, painfully normal. She used to hate that he called her that, and then she kind of grew to love it, like a message from home every time, and now...now she just doesn't know what she feels about anything anymore.

She's sitting at her gate, pretending to read, when her phone buzzes. She fishes it out of her pocket, jangling with nerves for, ugh, literally no reason at all. It buzzes again in her hand, the screen lighting up with a second message from Scott.

_send pix from the moulin rouge!_

And, underneath that, the first message: _fly safe x_

Right. She sends back an Eiffel tower emoji, a croissant, and the pink double heart. Then puts her face in her hands and promises herself she's not going to think about him _at all_ while she's in Paris. Why _go_ to Paris, if you're just going to... Yeah. She's going to completely focus on other things for at least three days. Or like...two. Probably.

_Fuck._

*

It's bad. It's really bad.

She's home for two weeks after Paris, taking it easy, only meeting up with Scott in the mornings to train. He asks her to come to dinner once or twice, but she demurs, saying she just wants "to chill." (This causes Scott to give her a weird look, but he doesn't push it.) She thinks this will give them some space from each other – well, give her some space from him – but no. They're so in the habit lately of telling each other everything that seeing Scott less (and how much less _is_ it, really?) somehow means talking to him even more. He sends her pictures throughout the day – dumb selfies, mostly, and he used to "hate" selfies, but not anymore, apparently – and random thoughts, and sometimes even an emoji.

Emojis are special because they mean he made an effort. For her. She has this thought every time he sends one, and then promptly wishes she could drown herself.

 _look it's us!_ with a video of two small skaters at the club. (One of them wipes out near the end of the recording. "Oh shit," says Scott's voice, and the video ends abruptly.)

 _mmm! thinking of u!_ This one completely paralyzes her when it arrives, until the follow-up photo (of Scott at the Market in front of the Chocolate Factory) comes in. She's so flustered and annoyed, she doesn't answer him for three hours.

 _how was your day?_ just once, near the end of the first week. It makes her miss him, somehow, absurdly, even though she literally saw him that morning.

She wants to tell him to stop, except she so, so doesn't want him to stop.

*

May is, Tessa decides, about getting a grip.

It does not, however, go well. In fact, it gets off to a terrible start, with them spending the first week of the month back in Ontario, making _Stars on Ice_ appearances and getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. It's like he can't do anything anymore, perfectly normal things, without her feeling like maybe it means something, or like maybe she wants it to mean something, or like maybe at any moment she might just crack and kiss him.

Which, she reminds herself viciously at every turn, would be the absolute worst thing she could possibly do right now.

"You look great," he says in her ear at the induction ceremony, presumably leaning so close in order to be heard. She flinches.

On the following day, he presses his mouth to her neck in the middle of their performance, and suddenly she _vividly_ remembers: her bedroom in Canton, dark except the light spilling in from the hallway, strange shadows everywhere. Scott, his stubble scraping along her collarbone, his _teeth_ –

(She came so hard that night she had a headache afterwards, and he stayed later than usual, gently massaging the base of her scalp, even after the headache had long since disappeared. Drifting off to sleep, she felt his weight leave the bed and wanted to ask him to stay, but she didn't, because this was when they were mad at each other. She remembers, because that was when they were doing more, um, biting.

She had to put on _so_ much concealer the next day.)

Luckily it's a competition piece, not a gala piece, so she could do it in her sleep. But there's no denying she loses focus for several beats, maybe even measures. She sees it on Scott's face, a very faint flicker of confusion, and doubles down on being present for the rest of the dance.

"You okay?" he says afterward, evidently not convinced.

*

Ten days later, on a Wednesday, Tessa turns twenty-eight. Scott takes her out to dinner, the first time they've ever done something like that. It feels very...grown-up.

"I guess I'm pretty glad you were born," he says, smiling at her, topping up her glass of water, and generally being more appealing than any one person has a right to be.

"Me too," she says, like an idiot. "I mean – "

Sometimes, when they were kids, they used to get treats after skating. Ice cream, or swimming, or hot chocolate. And then they'd get back in the car and head home, and part of her would wish they didn't have to drop Scott off. It wasn't like she didn't know she'd see him tomorrow – she did – but she always wished there could be more of _today_.

"Do you want to come in?" she blurts, at the end of the night, somehow still victim to this feeling nearly two decades later, or possibly just seized by temporary insanity. "I mean. Just for a minute. We could..." Oh god, she doesn't even know. Have a drink? (They shouldn't.) Make hot chocolate? (They also shouldn't.) Take each other's clothes off and ruin another Olympics? The thought rips through her, cold water poured down her spine. "Never mind," she says hastily, and gets out of the car so quickly that she almost trips on the sidewalk.

*

Ten days after that, Scott has a wedding to go to – to emcee, actually, which is just about the most perfect thing Tessa's ever heard. She had half-wished he'd asked her to come, but now she's deeply relieved he didn't. "Send my love!" she says cheerfully, shrugging out of his hug as soon as she can. "And make Danny video," she says. "I _need_ to see this."

"You got it," he says, though maybe without quite his typical level of enthusiasm. And then, "Well, bye," as he gets in his car, looking like he's not sure what to make of her.

When he texts her from the wedding, she hesitates and hesitates, and finally doesn't reply.

*

At this rate, the one thing more agonizing than trying to get through an Olympic season while sleeping with Scott? Trying to get through an Olympic season while _not_ sleeping with Scott.

But she's not going to go on feeling this way. She absolutely refuses. This is just another mental performance challenge, like getting too caught up in watching the competition or constantly picturing yourself falling, and she will conquer it like she has all the others.

With hard work and sheer willpower and a good, solid, three-pronged plan.

One: _on the ice – channel it._

When she sits down to make the pro/con list, this is the only pro that comes to mind. Storytelling-wise, it's always been her job to want him. Well, check. Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? She wonders this every time his hands slide down her, the most mundane, incinerating thing.

Two: _off the ice – stay away from him._

The way Tessa sees it, they're in the greatest danger of repeating Sochi when they're hanging out all the time, after hours. That's how it happened the first time, after all. They were both just...bored, and sexually frustrated (oh god, she hasn't had sex in _so long_ ), and – and so they made a mistake. But they're not going to make the same mistake again. They've worked too hard, and come too far, and she's not throwing away their second (third?) chance.

Three: _stop thinking about it._

Just kidding. That one's impossible.

Actually, they're all impossible. Because she hasn't actually conquered all of her challenges with hard work, or sheer willpower, or a good, solid, three-pronged plan – although those things have helped from time to time. The truth is, every challenge that's ever come her way, she's conquered with Scott.

(Scott, holding her hand and saying _hi_ and _I love you_ and _kiddo, this is it_. Scott, who once, when she was homesick, put on "Summer Nights" and sang both parts until she was absolutely forced to join in. Scott, the only boy in the entire world who would leave on her doorstep an actual bucket of rice. She still thinks about that all the time.)

But he won't always be there, will he?

*

"What's going on with you?" he asks, bluntly, catching her in the hallway at Sam's, three weeks into June. She's been, well, avoiding him, which is quite a feat when you consider that she spends ten hours a day with him, six days a week. Mostly, she's just been ditching out on their Saturdays.

It's been pretty miserable, to be honest.

"Nothing," she says automatically, and then, at the look on his face, "Sorry." He takes her hand, and, with effort, she doesn't pull away. "I've just been kind of distracted, I guess," she says, finally, a half-truth. She can't ever lie to Scott outright; he would know. The one person who _always_ knows. The one person she'd tell if this were any, literally any, other problem. Her heart hurts from not being able to talk to him.

His face is full of concern. "Did I do something?" Yes. No. Everything. "Listen, if you're having second thoughts – like, if you don't want to do this anymore – "

"No!" she says, immediately. How could he even think that? She yanks her hand out of his and throws her arms around him. Her face in his shoulder, she blinks, hard. "That's not it at all," she says. "Don't be crazy. I want... More than anything, okay?"

"Okay," he says, in that way he always says it when he doesn't _really_ get her, but – okay.

*

The team is there for a reason, she knows that. But there's just no good opportunity, no matter how many counseling sessions you have, to say, _I can't stop thinking about you. Naked._

*

By August, they're more or less back to last-season levels of hanging out. Because, frankly, it was ridiculous of Tessa to imagine that she could avoid spending time with Scott. The cost to their skating if their friendship faltered, for starters. And anyway, she missed him.

The Friday night before high performance camp, they have dinner at Foxy, then walk over to a nearby park they've visited once or twice before. The sun is down, but the sky is still light, and when they walk past the park's silhouetted playground, it's empty for the first time that they've seen.

Tessa knows _immediately_ what's about to happen, starts laughing before there's anything to laugh at. Scott glances around for spectators and, finding none, darts onto the wood chips and is three steps up the climbing net in a flash. "Come on," he says, tumbling into its basinlike top.

"I – what if we break it?" says Tessa, with her foot already on the first rung.

"What if we _break_ it?" says Scott, who's arranging himself on his back, even though the ropey surface looks highly uncomfortable. "How fat do you think I am?"

"Okay," she says, crawling onto the net next to him. He puts an arm out so she can use it as a pillow, tucking herself against him. It is, indeed, not very comfortable. And yet they stay there, together, watching the darkening sky. 

_This is a date,_ she thinks, suddenly, out of nowhere. (It's not. It just feels like it, because lately everything they do feels like a date.)

"What are you doing tomorrow?" she says, because she can't just lie here, breathing him in, having thoughts like that.

"I don't know," he says. "Haircut, maybe?"

"Oh, no, _don't_ – " Tessa pushes herself up without thinking, jostles the net, and almost elbows Scott in the face. He yelps, rolling away, and they both start laughing.

Eventually, they find equilibrium again, Scott propped up on his side, Tessa sitting cross-legged facing him. She reaches out and touches his hair.

"I love it," she says. "Don't cut it, please."

A long pause. She can tell he's watching her, but it's too dark to see exactly the look on his face. "Okay," he says, quiet, unexpected.

*

Camp is so special in an Olympic year. She opens her mouth to express this to Scott – they've both been so much more _grateful_ since coming back; it's nice – but then turns and sees he's looking at her, clearly thinking the exact same thing.

On the first of September, they celebrate their twenty-year anniversary, even though actually it was probably later in the month that Carol first tried them out.

("What'd you get me?" Scott jokes.

Tessa leans up and kisses him, just a peck, on the corner of his mouth. This surprises him, renders him satisfyingly speechless for a good three or four seconds.)

The next day, he turns thirty. Thirty! That's what happens when you add twenty to ten, she supposes, but. Feels impossible. Thirty? It's _Scott_.

*

They are...almost exactly as they've always been. Sometimes Scott bumps her shoulder in practice, or shoos her into the car, or sighs dramatically as she rearranges their food to take pictures of it, and Tessa feels nearly completely normal. But at the same time, she's starting to suspect she may never feel normal again.

One week after his birthday, they have a "just us" Saturday. It's because she's in Toronto next weekend, and then the weekend after that's the Autumn Classic, and then the weekend after _that_ is the B2ten thing, and – well, one way or another, they looked at the calendar and realized there wasn't another free day until after Skate Canada.

("Yeah, let's do something," Scott agreed, when she mentioned it, and the unwelcome knot of anxiety in her stomach eased. "Let's not get...you know," and he gestured vaguely in a way she understood to mean, _caught up in all the craziness._ They've made a promise to each other to remember what's important, this time around. To not lose one another amidst the sponsorships and media demands and sky-high expectations. To not screw this up this time.)

They grab breakfast at O&G, and Tessa gets coffee and hot chocolate, and Scott says, "You have a problem," but holds the hot chocolate for her anyway, as they walk down towards the river. It's warm out, summer just clinging on, and they get stopped a few times, but nothing too bad.

"How are you feeling?" he asks her (a normal question), and she says, good (a normal answer). They do a gentle debrief of the training week. Tessa spills all the gossip she picked up at camp – nothing that interesting, but still. Scott muses on small tweaks to "Moulin Rouge," and Tessa thinks fondly of that one time they said, maybe we should make a rule that we don't talk about skating when we're hanging out as friends, and how that lasted about a day and a half.

They talk about Jordan's new job, and how Scott's parents are re-doing the kitchen (again? he doesn't get it), and then they sit down on a bench and half-argue for twenty minutes about hockey. Scott gets exaggeratedly indignant, mainly for her benefit, and eventually Tessa's just laughing, and he trails off and reaches over and brushes the hair out of her face.

Sometimes it seems like another lifetime that she had him in her bed, and sometimes – sometimes, god, it could've been this morning.

"All right, enough," she says, trying to cover the catch in her voice with brightness. "Let's do blessings."

"You're so cheesy," he says automatically, but when she turns to him and puts her hands out, he takes them, of course.

For a minute, they're both quiet, leaning against the back of the bench, looking at each other. Then:

"Well, the top of my list's gotta be you, right?" he says easily, cheerfully, not at all like a person who makes it impossible to breathe.

*

Later, they pick up dinner and – go back to Scott's. He suggests it so naturally, as if it's normal, as if it hasn't occurred to him that they haven't once done that in fifteen months. That they've criss-crossed the city's parks and strolled down a hundred Montreal streets, and sat on basically every bench in existence, specifically in order to _never_ do that.

At least, that's why Tessa was doing it. Technically, they've never talked about it.

But tonight he suggests it, because they're both tired of being in public, and she agrees, because...because they're adults, and they can control themselves. And because it's hard to think of a good reason to say no. And because maybe she's tired of pretending she wants to. 

At his place, she excuses herself to the bathroom, then lingers in his hallway, peeks into his bedroom. She hasn't been here since the day he moved in. It's like she's at a stranger's, but not. She knows the bedspread, the shirts hanging in the closet, the photos of them that her mother framed and gave to them both.

"Snooping? Casing the joint?" he says, when she gets back to the kitchen. He's plated their food, hands hers over, grinning.

"Yes," she says, unabashed. "I stole all your underwear. That's okay, right?"

He laughs. "Yeah. As long as we don't trade costumes; then I think other people might mind."

Later, they sit at opposite ends of his couch, maybe a little further apart than is necessarily reasonable.

"Why don't we do this more?" Scott says, sounding convincingly curious until, disbelieving, she looks sharply at him and sees his expression. "Kidding," he says, stifling a laugh.

It is _not_ funny. But then again, it totally is.

*

October is too early ( _way_ too early) to be thinking about after the Olympics, but she is. They'll be trading sandwich halves at L'Avenue, and the thought will pierce her: what if this is all that's left, this time next year? The occasional lunch.

"No way," says Scott, when she half-brings it up, but he said that last time, too, and then it was like he wouldn't even have talked to her if they didn't keep having interviews and tours.

But it's different now. _It's different,_ she thinks, watching him make breakfast in her kitchen, the Saturday before Skate Canada. (She has a CBC Radio thing later, but – they made the time.) They're closer than they've ever been. Like actual friends. Best friends.

Which would make it so much worse if, after Pyeongchang, it was all gone.

She honestly, she can't imagine it. And she shouldn't be thinking about it, but she has to. She has to _prepare_. Monday mornings without his obnoxiously cheerful face. Thursday afternoons without him stealing bites of her avocado toast. They might not talk every day. They might not even live in the same city. She might see him three times a year, at Canada Day and Christmas and the occasional – wedding. And he'll be...dating someone. He's always dating someone. She'll probably be dating someone, too. They'll both be dating...separate people.

Not that they're dating each other now, but she's not _delusional_ ; she knows they act like it. ("So, what are you and Scott doing this weekend?" Jordan asked her, on Skype last Tuesday, without a shred of irony.) It's – confusing. They've been very good; no lines crossed, hardly even any touching when they're at either of their homes. It hasn't helped as much as Tessa would've liked.

She's like 90% sure he knows how she feels, by the way, and is just pretending not to notice, like he did when they were kids. Which, if she's right, would make this officially the most humiliating thing that's ever happened to her. 

*

199.86 at Skate Canada: their best score ever, _the_ best score ever. Inching closer to that 200-points mark they've been talking about sometimes, both in private and in the press. They want to be the first to do it.

But no, it's Gabi and Guillaume, one week later, at the Cup of China: 200.43. Less than a point's difference.

"Room to grow," Tessa says to Scott, when they hear. She takes a breath, inhaling calm. They need more points out of "Moulin Rouge." Better get to work.

198.64 at the NHK Trophy: not their best showing. Still above anything they posted _last_ year, sure, but. Not a personal best. Not where it needs to be for this season.

Gabi and Guillaume: 201.98 at the Internationaux de France. And cracking 120 in the free, more alarmingly.

Scott is quiet for a second, processing, then looks up at Tessa and smiles. He shakes his head, just a little, and that light comes into his eyes that always makes Tessa feel like there's not a feat in the world they couldn't accomplish. "Ours," he says firmly, what he always says to her about "Moulin Rouge." _Our song. Our story. Our Olympics._

Off the bench. Onto the ice. Again.

*

The Saturday before the Grand Prix Final, they have an evening training session, because that's what you do with your Saturday nights when the Olympics are two months out and you might be second-best. Scott is in a good mood, humming under his breath. He kicks out a step or two by himself, nothing in particular, just getting loose, while she laces up her skates.

"What are you singing?" she asks, as she steps onto the ice.

"I don't know," he says, half-laughing, and opens his arms for her. She pushes toward him, then hears the door and stops. But it's just Marie-France and Patrice coming in, chatting in rapidfire French. No one else tonight; she knew that, and still.

Scott's watching her, one eyebrow lifted, so calm it makes her feel embarrassed. There's a moment where they both might laugh. She closes the remaining distance between them, lets him fold her into him. "Hi," she says, into his shirt.

"Hi," he says, into her ear, making her shiver. He is always warm, somehow, no matter how early it is in their training day or how cold it was outside. The surest thing in her life.

They work through "Moulin Rouge" slowly, incorporating the latest changes. Her body feels sluggish, working against muscle memory. Again. Again.

 _We're not going to be ready,_ she catches herself thinking, a brief failure of willpower.

Afterward, she expects Scott to be frustrated, and maybe he is, but if he is he isn't showing it. He puts his hand on her shoulder and looks at her exactly the same way he looked at her two hours earlier, a surprise every time. "Dinner?" he says.

*

In Canton, a meal with Scott meant sliding into a booth at Bob Evans, or one of the four other places they'd been going since she was fifteen, and greeting waitstaff who'd known them both for a decade. Other patrons, smiling at them like friendly neighbors. Anticipation in her stomach; the memory of him on her skin.

In Montreal, it's – dimly lit bistros, bustling gastropubs, a new restaurant every two weeks and thousands more they'll never make it to. It's Scott saying, "Come on, _try_ it," and Tessa leaning forward, taking his fork, because somehow suddenly after twenty years she wants to surprise him. (She likes the way he watches her, eager, and looks so happy when she likes it.)

It's candles they don't turn over or stick their fingers in – okay, except once, at Majestique. It's knowing they're always being seen, and also not letting that knowing define them. It's a strange, terrible, new, old, wound-up, wide-open _wanting_ , every time he so much as looks at her.

"It's going to get there," he says, evidently interpreting her agonized silence as concern for their free dance. He reaches over and puts his hand over hers; she almost jerks away, a reflex. Scott barely reacts – maybe he didn't even notice. He gives her hand the most casual, reassuring squeeze, his thumb skating over, oh, her every nerve ending somehow, then retreats behind his menu. "Crostini?"

"Yes, please," says Tessa, trying to sound like someone whose heart isn't beating double time. Lately she keeps thinking, just _say_ something, but god, what would she say?

They order. They eat. Scott puts a quarter of his salmon on her plate without being asked, and takes the tomatoes out of her salad with only the briefest glance at her to confirm, and all she can think is, _don't ever let this end_. He makes jokes, and she laughs, half listening, half just – drinking him in, because who knows how many more nights like this there will be. Until finally he leans forward on the table, eyes just a bit narrowed, and says, "What's up, T?"

Oh. In a way, she had forgotten who she was at dinner with. "Sorry," she says, feeling the color rush to her face. "I was just thinking...how nice this is." Almost the truth. "Like..." She looks away from him, fiddles with the wrapper from her straw. "I'll be kind of sad when we don't get to do this anymore."

"You going to go on some kind of post-Olympics hunger strike?" says Scott. She looks up and sees he's trying not to grin – and not doing a very good job, mind.

She rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean."

"No, I don't," he says, and this time she maybe believes him. "Do you really think we're going to stop hanging out?" and he doesn't say it casually, exactly, but he says it so much more casually than she can bear.

Her mouth feels oddly dry. It's hard to answer.

" _Tessa_ ," he says – like _come on_ , like _don't be ridiculous_ , like _seriously?_ and she feels...silly.

She takes a sip of water and tries to sound normal, presses a laugh into her voice. "I don't mean, like... I just mean, who knows? I probably won't – you probably won't – we're not both going to live _here_ forever."

"I might," he says. And – he's not kidding. In their whole lives, she can count on one hand the number of times he's said something that she was not expecting _at all_. She is silent for a long, astonished moment, still half searching his face for signs of a joke.

"Really?" she says, finally. She's not sure _why_ she's so surprised. They've talked a lot in the last year or two about how much they love Montreal: the city, the people, Gadbois. But maybe some part of her just always pictures Scott back in Ilderton, at the home rink, with the rest of the Moirs. Or maybe it's a shock to hear he's been thinking about the future at all.

"Yeah." He shrugs, an easy shrug, with something underneath it that she can't quite place. "I don't know." His fingers drum the edge of the table, once, twice. "I could live anywhere. Paris. Toronto."

Paris? Toronto? Tessa feels like the floor is sliding out from under her. He could go anywhere. Do anything. When has he _ever_ wanted to live –

"Maybe I'll move to Japan for a while," says Scott, warming to his subject, apparently.

"Oh," says Tessa, a small and painful sound, because she has to say something.

He kisses her.

*

Just like that, over her half-eaten salad, where anyone could see them, he kisses her. Lightning-fast, he leans across and kisses her. The table is almost too wide, but he kisses her. _He kisses her._

And just as quickly, pulls away. Almost before Tessa knows what's happened. There's a roaring in her ears like the ocean. She looks down and sees her hands clutching the edge of the table, as if she grabbed it to brace herself. Maybe she did.

"Are you okay?" he says. "I – "

 _Is she okay?_ She's laughing, maybe, or crying, maybe. He offers her his napkin, his eyes sliding away from her to check their surroundings. It reels her in, this small, too-real thing. They are in public. She takes his napkin but doesn't use it, extracts a tissue from her purse instead. Just a little bit of mascara and blush come off on it. She folds it carefully into a triangle, stares at it in her hand. It takes her several seconds to realize she's smiling.

She looks up, and Scott is smiling, too.

*

They pay the bill. "Thank you," says Scott to the maître d', and Tessa's almost sure his voice shakes slightly. It's – comforting.

When they get in the car, the silence is the loudest silence she's ever heard. Her whole body prickles with anticipation, uncertainty. Should she say something? Should she kiss him? He turns toward her – then turns back and starts the engine.

She sneaks glances at his profile as they drive down Notre-Dame. Every possible scenario seems to leap through her, each more terrifying than the last. He regrets kissing her already. He's going to take it back (somehow). He didn't mean to do it. He _did_ mean to do it.

Tomorrow their whole lives could be new.

She's getting ahead of herself. She looks down at her hands, her fingers splayed against the dark of her jeans, and pictures kissing him, across the gearshift, outside her house. The rough of his coat in her hand, the way his mouth would open under hers. She's imagined it a thousand, a million, a universe of times before.

She's imagined them in her front hall, pressed up against the closet. She's imagined them in his kitchen, on her couch, even at the rink a few times (a mental-performance failure if there ever was one, but suddenly she doesn't even feel guilty). There's nowhere in this city she hasn't imagined them. How will it happen _for real_? Where? The possibility takes her breath away.

The car stops. It's a long, disorienting moment before she realizes – they're not at her house, or his. They're in the parking lot at the rink, because her car is still here. Because they went together to dinner, but earlier she came to training straight from BonLook. That feels like several lifetimes ago, now.

It takes her a minute to feel steady enough to look at him. He's put the car in park, is just waiting, waiting for her to get out, maybe. She's afraid to read what's on his face – maybe he was never thinking what she was thinking.

But then, when she _does_ look at him, he just looks like Scott. Patient – not about everything, not about most things, really, but always with her if she was scared or nervous or unsure. He tilts his head slightly, a question, and affection, warm and reliable, surges up inside her.

She lets it carry her forward, leans over and presses her lips to his, not quite open and not quite closed, maybe not even a real kiss, the angle just slightly off. For a long beat there's nothing else, both of them afraid to breathe.

And then they're kissing, _really_ kissing, and her brain seems to short out, but her body remembers. He tastes the same, gets his hands in her hair the same way, makes the same helpless sound in the back of his throat when she licks her way into his mouth.

There's an aching in her bigger than the world. She kisses him to tell him that, and all the other things she hasn't even been able to say to herself yet. She kisses him so hard that she feels raw, a stripped wire, an open wound. She kisses him until she opens her eyes and the question in his is gone.

He takes a long, slow, ragged breath. She feels herself almost laugh, but there isn't enough air.

Finally, he says, not quite looking at her, "Could I...see you tomorrow?" and it's so ludicrous, she thinks she _will_ laugh, but then he looks up and their eyes meet and the weight of it all drops into her stomach like – she doesn't know like what.

She nods, not sure what will come out if she opens her mouth. He leans forward again, touches her cheek so gently it makes her shake, and kisses her good night.

All the way home, she feels blisteringly, shatteringly alive.

**

The next day is a full training day. When her alarm goes off in the predawn darkness, it feels like she's already awake. Maybe she was never really asleep. Her heart is pounding.

Discipline takes her through getting dressed, a smoothie, makeup. The short drive to the rink, bumping along behind a snowplow, every inch of her impatient. The sight of Scott's car in the lot, like every other morning, but today it's arresting.

Inside, he's on the ice warming up, along with Gabi and Madi. Marie-France spots Tessa and comes over to talk to her, suggestions after last night's session. Tessa feels her focus drifting, has to keep yanking it back from the other end of the rink, where Scott is laughing about something. "Okay. Yes. Right, definitely. Thanks," she says, crossing her fingers in her pocket that she's heard everything important.

And then he's there, slowing down as he makes the turn, waiting for her to come out and join him, as always. It's so _normal_ that for a second she wonders if last night really happened. But then the look on his face – okay. Yes. It definitely happened.

He puts his hand on the small of her back as she falls into step beside him, and it's like her entire being is suddenly on fire. He glances over at her, opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. She wonders if he can see it in her eyes. Maybe. She feels his fingers flex against her, restless. He looks away, and she realizes with a start that he's trying not to smile. And then, so is she.

The whole morning is like that. If she thought she was distracted by him sometimes before, it's nothing to this day. They do lifts and spins and every look, every touch, feels like a secret – a time-machine-to-2012 kind of secret – passing between them. His hand pressed just below her bellybutton, his fingers gripping the inside of her thigh... Her head has never been less in the game. Last night they were professional athletes, this feeling safely shoved to the back of her mind for minutes, hours at a time. Today she might as well be thirteen again, feeling wet between her legs and rushing to the bathroom on a water break, expecting blood (which, of course, it wasn't). Coming back to the ice feeling warm all over, afraid to look Scott in the eye, sure that he would somehow know.

Well, she's twenty-eight now, and he definitely knows.

They break for lunch (thank god). Tessa lingers in the change room, trying to breathe, and finds Scott waiting for her when she comes out. They walk out of the complex together, a good two feet between them, overcompensating wildly even though there's no one there to see.

The parking lot is bright and cold and blessedly empty. In the open space between their cars, he kisses her. And kisses her. And kisses her.

"Scott – " she says into his mouth, breathless, flushed. Her hand is fisted in his jacket. She wants to disappear inside this feeling.

But they are in a parking lot.

"Come over," she says, not a question.

His eyes fly open. For one second, one truly bizarre second, she thinks he might refuse – say something crazy and reasonable like, they should use this time to rest, regroup, have lunch, oh god _who cares_ – the only thing she cares about is having him inside her as soon as possible.

"Ten minutes," he says, sounding hoarse.

*

Fifteen minutes later, she's haunting her front door, more keyed up than she's ever felt in any kiss-and-cry in her entire life. Where the fuck is he?!

The door bangs open, missing her by inches. She jumps back.

"Oh my god," says Scott, reaching for her, getting her by the shoulders. "Are you okay? What the hell were you – I could've killed you!"

"What? You wouldn't have – " but he's pulling her in now, half-crushing her, and she's laughing, because really? She's fine. "Broken my nose, maybe," she says, into the collar of his jacket.

"Don't joke about that," he says. He presses a kiss to the side of her head, breathes this funny little huff, annoyed, relieved, and god, she loves him. So much, she loves him. Stupid amounts.

He sits down in the chair where he's always getting his shoes on and off and puts his head in his hands. "I'm really fine," she says, reaching out and running her thumb along the curve of his ear. Something almost a shudder goes through him. Not sure whether to be worried or aroused, she gets down in front of him, kneeling, and pries his hands away from his face. "Are you okay?"

And she must _look_ worried, because Scott's face changes immediately, like it always does when he doesn't want her to be upset. "I'm fine," he says. And then, almost on a laugh, sounding like himself again: "It's just been a very intense twenty minutes. Or – hours, I guess."

"You're telling me," she says, and then they're just – grinning at each other, like idiots. "Um – " she says after a second, squeezing her eyes shut because, honestly, it's hard to focus with his face right there, " – where'd you go? You left the parking lot, like, so fast. I thought you'd beat me here."

Now he does laugh. Tessa opens her eyes and is astonished to see, he's kind of blushing. "I went to, um, Pharmaprix," he says. He puts his hand in his pocket, but that's not necessary. She knows – of course he went to – because – condoms.

"Right," she says, and feels herself blushing, too, like they're sixteen-year-old virgins and not, you know, adults who have _already seen each other naked_. Like, so many times.

(But this is different.)

"Actually, you know, I _have_..." she starts, and then trails off.

Scott's covering his eyes again, with his non-condom-holding hand, but at this, he looks at her.

"I mean," she says quickly. "I'm not _using_..." She trails off again, awkward, not sure whether to laugh or hide. Oh god, somehow in the space of less than half an hour they've gone from "about to tear each other's clothes off in the Gadbois parking lot" to "can barely look each other in the eye."

"Hey," he says, putting both hands up. "You could have a secret boyfriend."

He's obviously kidding, but. "I don't," she says.

"I know," he says. He tips her chin up and kisses her, gently. She wishes he'd be less gentle; it makes her heart ache. (That was true before, too.)

"Come on," she says, feeling inexplicably, horrifyingly, like she might cry.

In her bedroom, he hangs his jacket over the corner of the door, then walks over and puts the condoms on her bedside table. It's so – deliberate.

Then they both realize they have their shoes on, of all things, so for several seconds they're both, like, super busy with that, him on what's normally her side of the bed, Tessa herself at the foot. She takes her socks off, too, for good measure, and then turns to look at him, pulling her bare feet up and tucking into herself.

He's sitting with his back to her still, kind of – looking around. Her bookshelves, the pictures on her wall. She realizes with a shock, he's never _actually_ been in her bedroom before. Not in Montreal. Not once, except in her imagination.

_It's happening. It's really happening._

...Is it, though? Tessa clears her throat, feeling – well, ridiculous. But then he turns, and the look in his eyes gets her right in the center of her chest. She opens her mouth to say, "Hi," but no sound comes out.

"Hi," he says back, very quiet.

She wants to say, _I love you,_ or at least, that's what she thinks this feeling must be. This feeling like any words at all and she might just fly to pieces.

"Um," says Scott. He kind of reaches for the bottom of his pullover, then stops.

"No, do," says Tessa politely, apparently suddenly reinvested with the power of speech. And then, hearing herself at the same time she sees it in his face, "Oh god, what's happening." She crawls up the bed and flings herself into her pillows.

Scott starts laughing. She reaches out a hand, blind, and tries to swat at him. He catches her hand and returns it to her – _play nice_ – and then she feels the bed shift, him lying down next to her. A moment later his hand is on her shoulder, warm, his thumb grazing the back of her neck. She feels it all the way down to the pulse in her groin, presses herself into the mattress, involuntary. Scott's breathing catches, next to her ear.

Honestly, she would not have thought there was space in her for so much desire and so much humiliation at the same time, yet here she is.

"Listen," he says, so close that she can feel it on her skin. "It doesn't have to happen...like this."

 _What._ Tessa exhales a laugh into the pillow, disbelieving, feeling slightly hysterical. It does have to happen. She will _die_ if it doesn't happen, and then they have to go back to work and – another three, four, six hours – _no_.

She pops up off the pillows and starts unzipping her hoodie, can't get it undone at the bottom for some reason, gives up and yanks it off over her head. It lands on the floor behind her with a clatter and a _fwump_.

" _Kiddo_ ," says Scott, sounding slightly alarmed. He sits up and reaches for her, stops her before she can get her T-shirt off, too. He has her by both wrists, one in each hand, and somehow – god – that turns her on as much as anything.

"Scott?" she says, looking right at him, and she says it because she's planning on something hot to say when he says _what_ – something like, _I want you_ or _I need you_ or _fuck me_ – but. The look on his face.

(She never used to say his name. Well, rarely. Once or twice she remembers, maybe. She never realized that till now.)

She takes his hands and leans down and kisses him, with that terrible tight feeling in her chest again. God, she's so over this love thing.

For one half-second Scott seems stunned, still, and then – then he's kissing her back, tugging his hands free. She feels them on her waist, and sliding up the back of her shirt. The slight scrape of his nails as his fingers work their way under the edge of her sports bra. Almost four years she's lived without this. It seems impossible.

It's so good to have her hands on him again – bracketing his ribcage, flattening out against his chest. Nothing, nowhere, that she's not allowed to touch. Why is he wearing so many stupid clothes?

She twists to dislodge him, fumbles to find the bottom layer of his shirts. Everything comes off in one glorious pull, and there he is – naked from the waist up. She can't help but grin. "Oh, hel _lo_ ," she says, and, to her delight, he looks faintly embarrassed.

"It's not like you haven't – "

" _Not_ the same," she says, and kisses him again, pushes him down till his head hits her pillow. Costume fittings, locker rooms, that one time they went running together – those are not _this_. At a costume fitting, she can't run her finger down that line between his abs and see it shiver through his whole body. In a locker room, she can't climb on top of him and bite at the line of his jaw. That one time they went running along the canal, she _certainly_ couldn't lick the sweat off his collarbone (although she wanted to; dear god, she wanted to) and grind down on –

" _Tessa_ ," he says, on a groan, reproachful. Jesus Christ, she's never been happier. She could live inside that sound.

But, obligingly, she scoots back and sits on his thighs, gives him a second. His face is perfect. She's always loved him like this, a little disheveled, halfway to the edge, because of her. Of course there were other guys, but no one – no one ever made her feel more wanted than when she was with Scott.

(Not that she was ever _with_ Scott, before – before now? But she was kind of with him, longer than she was with anyone else.)

"I have something for you," she says, when he seems ready.

"I – now?" He starts to sit up, confused; she pushes him back down.

"No, stay." She hops off him, peels her leggings and underwear off next to the bed. Scott's eyes go wide. He looks, automatically, then hastily back up to her face. She gulps down a laugh. "It's okay," she says. "I – " Feeling acutely, absurdly nervous, she comes closer, takes his hand and puts it there.

She's so wet, even with her legs nearly closed, his finger slides along her. He looks – startled. Happy startled. "From – "

"All day," she says simply, and he jerks his hand back like he's been burned. The tip of his middle finger comes away slick, shiny. She can't blame him for turning his head away, dragging in a long, slow breath, his eyes half-closed. He looks the way she feels. Destroyed.

Turning her back to him, she shucks off her T-shirt and her sports bra, lets them fall into the pile of her leggings. Suddenly she's cold, and very conscious of being naked, and how _light_ it is.

(Before, they almost never had sex in the middle of the day. A couple of times at the beginning, but after they made rules – only twice. Once in Ilderton, in Scott's car, most of their clothes still on, Tessa sure that at any moment someone would catch them. Once in her bedroom in Canton, less than three weeks before Sochi. She texted him in the middle of a rest day, even though she wasn't supposed to, and he came over, even though he wasn't supposed to. And afterward they fell asleep together, and when she woke up the sun was going down, and she looked at his sleeping face on her pillow – his eyelashes, his mouth all vulnerable and quiet – and felt sick with uncertainty, with yearning.

She hasn't thought about that day in years. She almost remembers forgetting it on purpose.)

"...T?" His hand is on her hip, warm and solid and real. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she says, putting her hand over his, curling her fingers into the spaces between his. But it's Scott. She doesn't know why she bothers lying to him, ever.

"You sure?" he says skeptically, and when she doesn't answer, he tugs her around and kisses her hands, her wrists, all the way up to the inside of her elbow. "Do you want to stop?" he says.

" _No_ ," says Tessa, and means it very much, though it feels like she has to wrench the word out of her throat.

Scott looks at her for a long moment, clearly trying to decide if he believes her.

"Don't stop, please," she whispers. That does it. He draws her back down onto the bed with him, shifting over to make room. He licks, sucks, kisses his way down her neck, her breasts, her stomach. When his tongue touches her, the noise that comes out of her makes her throw her hand up to cover her eyes. She feels Scott shudder down there, his fingers tightening slightly, his breath hot on her thigh.

He's – _better_ at this than he used to be. Not that it was bad before (it definitely was not), or didn't work (it definitely did), but. Somehow, in all her fantasizing, it never occurred to her that he, too, would be four years more sexually experienced. She just kind of...thought it would be like it was. Stupid.

She feels the tension curling inside her, faster, harder than it used to. A sudden, half-formed image comes unbidden into her head: Scott doing this to, with, Kaitlyn. Her giving him instructions, maybe, pointers. Him –

Tessa sits up, horrified, her knees falling open. Startled, Scott looks up at her, wipes his mouth.

"Bad?" he says, looking worried.

"No – " She shakes herself, tries to – not care, because she _shouldn't_ care. And also tries to look normal, because Scott looks very worried now. "I – " She takes a breath. "Good," she says, swallowing. "Really good. I just – " She puts a hand on his head, reassuring. "I don't, um. I don't want it to be like that...the first time."

This is true, actually, she realizes as she hears herself say it. Though she thinks he might laugh at "first time." It is not, _not_ the first time. But somehow, it feels like it.

He doesn't laugh. She pulls him up and kisses him, and they shed the bottom half of his clothes, and – there they are, naked. Together. Again.

"I've missed you," she says, biting her lip, fighting the urge to giggle.

"Oh god, please don't talk to it right now," says Scott. He shoves her, lightly, and she falls back on her elbow, and then it's okay to laugh, because he's laughing, too, as he comes down on top of her.

She lies all the way back so she can get her arms around him, squeezes, thinks, _I will never, ever –_

"Ow," says Scott, mildly, not at all like she's actually hurting him. She opens her eyes to find him pushing himself up on one arm, looking at her.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just – "

Tessa turns her head away, to forestall any compliments, serious questions, declarations of love. She sees the box of condoms on her bedside table and picks it up, plonks it down right between her breasts. Looks at him, expectantly.

She thinks it will make him laugh, but he just looks slightly dazed, as if even though she said _come over_ and led him into her bedroom and took off all her clothes, he can't quite believe this is happening. "Okay," he says, his voice rocky, and sits back on his heels between her legs. Tessa closes her eyes briefly, listens to him fumbling with the box, the wrapper. The soft hiss of his breath as, presumably, he rolls it on. Then, an odd – pause.

She opens her eyes. "Sorry," he says. "I'm just – "

Sitting up, it takes her three, four, five entire seconds to recognize the look on his face. He's _nervous_.

Her heart clenches, swells, expands till it could hold all of Canada. She's never, never seen him look like that. Not – like this.

"Come here," she says, and now her voice is coming out hoarse, too. She takes his face in her hands and kisses him, slowly at first and then harder, with all the force of emotion that she didn't know, didn't want to know, was inside her.

*

The way they fit together is – terrifyingly familiar. He remembers how she likes it, which leg goes over his shoulder, where to put his fingers, the heel of his hand. She remembers that it always felt like this was how they _belonged_ , caught up in sensation, half fused together – and that was why it was so hard to stop. And how fear used to butterfly in her stomach whenever she thought about that, and so it pretty much became crucial that she didn't.

Afterward, she hides her face in his neck, and shakes her head when he tries to say something. Eventually, he falls asleep. Forever, it seems like, she lies awake, the window too bright in the corner of her eye.

(But it must not be forever, because then she's waking up, blearily, confused, unable to decide if she's surprised or not surprised to find Scott crouching beside her.

"You have to eat something," he says. She blinks, and a plate comes into focus on her bedside table. Eggs? What time is it? "Ten minutes," says Scott, sounding amused.)

Getting back on the ice in the afternoon, with the smell of him still on her skin, Tessa thinks of "Carmen" and expects it will be "Roxanne" that feels different, now. But it's "Come What May."

Later, they go back to his place, because some part of Tessa wants to christen Scott's home, too, as soon as possible. Like now that they're finally doing it, she can't wait a moment to do it in every single place she ever pictured.

(Here's one she _never_ pictured, though: sitting on his kitchen island, his hands pinning her wrists, his head between her thighs. That's – new. This time, miraculously, she thinks about nothing at all.)

Yeah – maybe it's the rush of having everything she wanted, suddenly. Maybe it's pure hectic intoxication, like before. Or maybe, like before, it's knowing that nothing this good could possibly last.

Anyway, for like three days, they're perfect.

*

_Papadakis/Cizeron: 202.16_  
_Virtue/Moir: 199.86_

**

It's not their first silver medal (of course). But it's their first silver medal since Sochi. Since coming back. Since telling pretty much the entire world that they weren't going to be defined by old tricks, habits, mistakes.

And here they are, trailing at yet another Final – seriously, what _is_ it with them and the Grand Prix?! – not even making their personal best in the short. Here she is, stooping to gracefully accept their second-place finish, inside nothing but scorched-earth disappointment and need.

It's hard not to feel like it's a sign.

They tell the press it doesn't matter, basically, that losing their last international competition before Pyeongchang is practically part of the plan. Swallowing down a hundred un-calm, un-gracious feelings, Tessa talks about all the recent changes they've made (true), and how they like to be chasing rather than defending (somewhat true). Scott does the hard part – talking about their "vision" and how despite the disappointment they're completely on track to February (are they?), and the color of this medal doesn't make a difference (doesn't it?). "We're so prepared," he says, the warmth of him at her shoulder an anchor, a scald. "So ready to bring our A-game and do what it takes to get the rest of those points. See you in Korea."

Half an hour later, she's at his hotel room door, not even changed out of her Skate Canada gear. "Hi," he says, startled, shirtless, and then, "Jesus," as she shuts the door behind her and starts shedding her clothes.

"I forgot you got like this," he says, biting at her ear. They do it fast and hard and messy, pouring their frustration into one another, and for the first time this week it kind of feels, well, exactly like it used to. Like they're getting something _out_ , finally, instead of filling each other up with terrifying possibility.

Afterward, she turns away from him, feeling wrung out and guilty and relieved, and listens until he falls asleep, and then misses him desperately, somehow.

*

In the morning, the rare late morning, sunlight pours across them. Tessa wakes up suddenly, with a lurch in her heart, and turns over expecting Scott to be gone.

But he's not. He's lying on his back with his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling – and then, immediately, at her. She doesn't know why she thought that.

"Hey," he says, coming up onto his elbow. In the second before he smiles at her she sees everything she feels reflected. The leaden heaviness of, yup, they really lost. The hunger to hit the ice _right now_ , _right this second_ , and _fix_ it. The knowledge that this was it, and now there's just this long stretch of uncertainty until February, seeing Gabi and Guillaume across the ice every day and wondering are we, are we really as good as we think we are?

"You good?" he says, and it's gone.

All day, she thinks about that look on his face and how he put it away so quickly, so completely. She doesn't remember him doing that before; or did he always do it, and she just never noticed? Waiting in the wings for "Long Time Running," she takes his hand and thinks about how their whole lives, probably, it's been his job to be the one who never doubts them.

She's not letting him down. Not this time. Not ever again.

*

On the plane ride home, Scott keeps looking over at her, wary, like he knows what she's thinking, which, let's face it, he probably does.

*

She's not trying to ruin anything. It's the opposite of that.

It's Scott taking her hand, just for a few seconds, as they're walking through Trudeau. He gives her this look – _don't forget why we're doing this, T_ – and she wants to laugh, because since when is he the voice of reason?

It's the midnight ride home from the airport, all the focus and determination she didn't know she'd been missing surging through her, undeniable. They promised each other they would do it for love this time, sure. But they also promised each other gold. Which one of those promises was just a thing they said, and which one was the thing they meant? When it comes down to it, which promise is she ready to break?

It's unlocking her front door, half-watching as the car pulls away, traveling on to Scott's. It's the folding picture frame on her nightstand that she's had turned face-down for months now, because something about their young faces was too much to bear. Vancouver. Sochi. That plane ride home still echoes through her; she's not living it again.

They're not built to lose. Sometimes, secretly, it still feels to her like a miracle that everything didn't just end.

This time, they're getting what they came for. She's not going to have another Olympics where her head isn't in the game, where they wind up fake-smiling, gripping one another's arms, hips, shoulders hard enough to bruise. She's not going to have another Olympics where they don't give it everything they've got.

And then after...?

They meet for lunch before an afternoon training session, the next day. "Scotty," she says, bracing herself, "I think we should – "

"Table this for now? I think so too," he says, surprising the ground out from under her.

*

They are so grown-up. She's proud of them. He's – he was not mad at all. He completely agreed with her, that they need to focus on the Olympics. Clearly she underestimated him, and...maybe they really are "professional athletes" now. "Business partners" (ha), and their business is winning.

Yup. Everything about this is going exactly as she probably dreamed. They will probably just – talk about it after they win (if they win) (when they win) (now they really _have_ to win), and – pick up where they left off.

She's – not worried about it. Obviously.

*

In practice that week, they rework the end of "Moulin Rouge." Patrice makes a good case for trying it, and Tessa watches Scott thinking, remembers the day they first choreographed it.

("Yes, that's beautiful," said Marie-France, as they eased up out of the pose. Tessa caught Scott's eye, and he winked, and she just felt – so sure. It sang through her.

"So excited to bum people out at the Olympics," he joked afterward, slinging his arm around her as they walked out to their cars.)

"Okay, yeah, go out with a bang. Let's give it a shot," he says finally, nodding. He gets up out of his crouch and puts his hand out for Tessa's. "From the transition?" _So_ normal.

She's – impressed, that's all.

The following Monday, they fly to Toronto to do a thing for Air Canada. Just one night. After the event, they retire to their (separate) (but adjacent) hotel rooms. There's one of those weird doors in the wall, the kind that you know connects to the next room, but like, normally there's a stranger in there, so you wouldn't want to open it.

Not that she wants to open it now.

Twice, she picks up her phone to text him, then puts it down again, sliding it further away from her on the nightstand. Through the wall, she can hear him flipping channels. Then the TV shuts off, and there's nothing.

*

She's tired of this reasonless gnawing, doubting feeling – just wants to keep working, _pushing_ , until it goes away. But it's four days to Christmas at this point, and, "Hey. We're doing everything we can," says Scott, putting a cautious hand on her back. "Don't worry, we're going to make this happen."

"You're better at believing in us than I am," she blurts out, guilty, in their mental performance check-in half an hour later. "I feel – bad."

A funny look passes over Scott's face, almost like he wants to laugh. "We're different," he says, so _nice_. She wants to shake him.

"You need each other," says Jean-François, in his most soothing tone. Maybe he saw the shaking impulse on Tessa's face. "Do not forget."

As if she could. As if thinking about that isn't the thing that keeps her up at night.

*

They fly home together on Christmas Eve morning, friendly but quiet, and then don't talk until the next day. She keeps expecting to hear from him – a picture, a family update, _something_ – but nothing. She finally caves at 11:34 AM and texts him a Christmas tree emoji. And a heart. Because – it's not like they broke up. Or were dating. (Were they?)

Ten minutes later, he replies. Tessa hears her phone buzz and reaches for it so quickly she almost knocks a lamp off an end table. Smooth.

_hey, merry christmas_

And then he's typing something else – and then he's not. She waits, but he never comes back.

*

"What are you, in withdrawal?" says Jordan, later that afternoon. "You two are so codependent."

Are they? Tessa looks automatically at her phone, then tries to pretend she didn't (but not fast enough; she catches Jordan rolling her eyes). Scott's not codependent. He's not thinking about her at all, apparently.

First thing after breakfast the next morning, Jordan literally grabs Tessa's coat out of the front closet and throws it at her. "Okay, you weirdo, go see him. You're no fun like this."

"Go see who?" says Tessa, feeling uncooperative.

"'Go see who?'" mimics Jordan, not without affection. "Please."

"You don't know it's about Scott," says Tessa, with maximum stubbornness.

"It's _always_ about Scott," says Jordan.

*

His brother Charlie opens the door. "Oh," he says, surprised, but not that surprised. "Scott!" he yells, up the stairs. Then hustles her in, hugging her, taking her coat, asking how she is –

"Oh," says Scott, on the stairs, looking confused. "Did you – " He pats his pockets, evidently looking for his phone.

"No," she says. "Sorry." (She was going to text. She was. But she picked up her phone and looked at _hey, merry christmas_ , and honestly, it was all she could do not to just run back inside the house. If Jordan hadn't been there, she almost certainly would have.)

"Is everything – "

"Yeah," she says, feeling spectacularly stupid. Oh god, he could have _plans_.

For a second it's just – very awkward, Charlie looking between them curiously. "Well, come on up," says Scott, finally, rallying.

In his very small childhood bedroom, where once before Sochi they got half-naked and then broke apart, panting, and mercifully didn't do it, Tessa sits carefully down on the edge of his bed. Scott clears off the desk chair and sits there instead of next to her, swiveling. About a million inappropriate, needy, anxious things pop into Tessa's head at once, not a single one a sentence she could possibly let out of her mouth.

"So..." says Scott, reaching for a joke to fill the silence, as always. "What'd you, miss me?"

"No," she says reflexively, a jolt of defensiveness going through her. It's an _obvious_ lie – what else would she be doing here? – but even so, it comes out with an edge she doesn't expect.

Scott doesn't expect it either. "Well, if you came for a booty call, that window doesn't open till eleven," he says, and he doesn't even say it that _mean_ exactly – still almost sounds like he's kidding – but he says it so _fast_ , it kind of takes her breath away.

(They haven't fought, she hasn't even seen him angry, in so long. She forgot, it's kind of his thing.)

She doesn't know why she came. She doesn't need him giving her shit about it. She doesn't need him, period.

"Great, I'll come back," she says, with as much furious sarcasm as she can muster.

"I just meant – " he says, but you know what, it's too late. Her throat is closing up with tears, and she cannot be in this stupid room with him another minute.

"Save it," she says, and leaves.

*

 _i'm a dick_ , he texts her, before she's even halfway home. _please come back._

Half an hour later, he tries calling her. Sitting in the car two blocks from her mom's (so Jordan won't ask why she's back so soon), Tessa lets it buzz and buzz and go to voicemail. She pictures him worried, repentant, pacing that tiny bedroom, and it fills her with vicious satisfaction.

(He's totally wrong. _She's_ the dick, for sure.)

*

In the morning, she feels completely, completely awful. She tries calling him, but he doesn't answer. That's fair, she supposes, throwing the last of her toiletries in her suitcase.

He's late to the airport, so late that she doesn't see him until he slides into the seat next to her on the plane. He looks – rough. It kind of makes her want to cry again, which is ridiculous, but apparently this is who she is now when it comes to him. A complete fucking mess.

It's too hard to say _sorry_ , so instead she says, "Are you mad at me?" low. Stupid.

Scott clearly thinks so, too. He gives her this slightly incredulous look, like he almost might laugh, and then it all just – disappears, into exhaustion, or exasperation, or something. "Little bit," he says, tightly.

Tessa opens her mouth to say something – honestly, she doesn't even know what's going to come out – but Scott shakes his head. _I'm not doing this with you here._

They fly from London to Toronto to Montreal, the longest three hours of her life.

*

By the time they're safely ensconced in the back of the car, Tessa can't contain herself another millisecond. "Will you talk to me now?!" she bursts out, and it – doesn't come out sounding the way she means it.

Scott gives her this _really?_ look, his face full of reluctance. The thought skitters across her, makes her heart seize in her chest – he should be with someone else. She doesn't know how to do this.

"You can't just run away," he says, and she jumps, for half a second convinced that they really have progressed to mind-reading, finally. But he's – just talking about yesterday, she thinks, probably. "That's not how this works."

She wants to say _I'm sorry_. Instead she says, "You're the one who's good at this, not me."

Maybe he hears the _sorry_ , though, because he kind of laughs. "I'm the one who's good at this? God, I hope that's not true."

"You've been...with people," she says vaguely. All his past girlfriends cycle through her head, rapidly, one after another; a slideshow of everyone she was ever afraid he might love.

He shrugs. She wonders if he's remembering them, too. Kaitlyn. She still doesn't know what happened with that, though now she thinks maybe actually she does.

She thinks it without meaning to, and then she says it without meaning to: "We shouldn't have done this. Let's just..."

She can't finish the sentence, but then, she doesn't have to. A long beat. The air seems to sharpen.

"Tess – I know you're scared," says Scott, sounding like he's working very hard to keep it together.

"I'm not," she says, looking away.

"Don't _lie_ to me!" he says, furious. "It's like... It's insulting."

And when she doesn't say anything, when she still doesn't look at him:

"You love me. I know you do."

And then finally he says, so quiet and so painful that she feels it crawl up under her skin and knows it will be there forever,

"Okay."

*

"Scott – "

"Don't talk to me."

*

"Scott – "

This time, he puts a hand up to stop her. "I just want to forget this ever happened, please."

**

They have practice that night, of all things. She half expects him not to be there, but his car is in the lot when she arrives. Right. Of course he wouldn't.

It's the worst practice, maybe the worst day, of her life. Warming up, he takes her hand but won't look directly at her. She has the feeling maybe he can't.

Under Romain's watchful gaze, they work through "Roxanne." A little quiet, a little subdued, but not too bad, considering. Better with the music on; easier to disappear, maybe. Into passion, heartbreak, keywords. They get through it. Once, they fumble each other, just a little. "Tired?" says Romain, frowning slightly at them. "What was that?"

Scott's got his head down, just for a second, dragging his hand through his hair. It could be a normal day – tired, frustrated, whatever. Tessa reaches without thinking to put a hand on his shoulder, then withdraws, too quickly. "A little," she says to Romain, adjusting her sleeve, covering, badly.

Scott clears his throat, straightening up. "Yeah, it was... I don't know what that was. Sorry. Again?"

Romain shakes his head, indicates _move on_. Tessa glances at Scott, can almost feel them both shoving down the same feelings, anticipation, dread. Even now, they're in this together.

"Could we maybe take a break first? Like five?" she says.

Romain looks at her, surprised, but nods. She feels him watching them, concerned, as they step off the ice. Tessa sits down on their bench. Scott leaves, actually leaves and goes out into the hallway, and doesn't come back until the break is over.

*

It doesn't get better as the week goes on. She thinks it will, but it doesn't.

They are skating better, maybe. "Come What May" remains a special kind of awful, but Patrice was right about the ending. It's – better now, probably.

Honestly, it's hard to tell. She feels like she's lost the thread of everything.

On the third day after she breaks Scott's heart, Marie-France catches her on her way out of the change room, her lovely face serious. "Tessa," she says, looking her in the eye in the empty hallway, "is there something we need to know?"

"No," says Tessa – apparently the only way she knows how to answer a question, these days. "Thank you."

Marie-France regards her, stops her from leaving with a gentle touch on the arm. "My dear," she says, "don't forget what's in here, okay?"

She taps her chest, smiles, and disappears back into the rink.

*

The fourth day is New Year's Eve.

It's a rest day. Tessa wakes up late and wonders if anyone would notice if she just...didn't get out of bed.

But of course she does. She gets up and makes herself presentable and goes to Atwater Market, and when she doesn't feel any better after that she goes to the gym.

"Oh," she says, bumping into Scott just outside the locker rooms, the unexpected sight of him taking the wind out of her.

"Hey," he says. There's an awkward moment where they both seem not to know what to do – hug? high-five? just turn and walk away from each other, pretending this never happened? – but then he musters up a smile. It seems to cost him.

(Almost every day of their lives, he's been happy to see her. And now.)

He puts out a fist. She bumps it. At the warm touch of him, a surge of longing goes through her, so strong it brings tears to her eyes. God. She turns to go, then hesitates.

"Um – happy new year," she says. And then, quickly amending, "Almost."

A pause. Scott reaches out and kind of taps her shoulder with the back of his hand, like he used to sometimes when they were kids. "Happy new year, almost."

*

2018 arrives, in a flood of text messages. After the whole gym thing, Tessa goes to sleep early, like, _really_ early, trying to block out the fact that they were supposed to spend New Year's together.

("Yeah, we'll have champagne at like nine," Scott joked, months ago. Before – everything. They were going to get strawberries. They were going to watch _When Harry Met Sally_. They would have Skyped their moms and laughed about how much hotter a New Year's their parents were having, and then he probably would've crashed on her couch.

She wants to be that version of them again so badly, but it's gone.)

When she wakes up, it's dark. She fumbles for her phone and squints at it. _4:22_ – and, underneath, a sea of notifications. She thumbs down rapidly, just in case, but nothing from Scott. She didn't expect anything, of course, especially not after they ran into each other. But she _wanted_ it. She hasn't been able to make herself stop wanting it, somehow.

It’s too late to go back to sleep. Turning on a light, she decides she might as well answer everyone. _Happy new year!_ she types, over and over, adding emojis where appropriate.

From Jordan: _Lol, you are so MIA. Call me!!!!_

Tessa hesitates, wincing, then writes back rather guiltily, _Soon!! It's been crazy here, sorry._ She's been the worst sister these past few days. It's just, she knows how that call would go.

From Midori: _How r u?? It's been ages. Hope u and ur guy are killing it as always_

...No, not so much. She tries a few different responses – a thumbs-up emoji, a _yes!!!!_ , a _great!!!!_ – but everything is wrong and horrible. In the end, she just moves on.

She gets to a message from Scott's mom last, right after one from Kevin. _Hello sweetheart,_ it reads. _Scotty says things are fabulous but very busy. Don't forget to rest! Hope you two have a fun night tonight. We love you so much._

2018 arrives, in a flood of tears.

*

It's funny – just like last time, they seem to turn a corner in January. She's been thinking about that a lot more than she's supposed to: last time. Remembering how relieved she felt at them kind of getting back to normal; how her head was just filled with Sochi, the urgency of it; how there was nothing she wanted more than that second gold medal in their hands.

It's different now.

With Nationals less than a week away, they're feeling good. Skating _really_ clean in practice, just small tweaks here and there, trying to get those levels consistent. Everyone is elated, even Scott. "Yes, this," says Patrice, showing them video. "Exactly this. Hold on to this."

She feels Scott's arm come around her, a complete surprise. He gives her a squeeze, a shake, like things haven't changed at all (even though they definitely, definitely have). She looks up at him, and he's smiling. Like it's all over now – back to being a team! That's them, though, isn't it? Nothing more important than their partnership, ever. Ever. Feeling wobbly, she smiles back.

He _is_ such a good partner. The best, really.

(She remembers: him taking her face in his hands, right before they went on for "Seasons." She could feel every inch of herself, vibrating with the _now_ of it. "Hey," he said, so close they were breathing the same air. "I love you. Win or lose. Okay?"

She'd forgotten about that. Maybe it didn't seem that special at the time.)

You know, it's crazy, she thinks, as they take the ice for one more go. She could search her whole life and never find a better –

_Oh._

*

"I have a proposal for you," she says, all but accosting him at his car.

He looks – downright alarmed. It is not romantic. "A...business proposal?" he says, utterly confused.

If this were a movie, she would have stopped the music and told him, right there on the ice. If this were a movie, she would have kissed him in the hallway in front of everyone. If this were a movie, she'd show up on his doorstep at midnight and manage to say all the right things.

Like: _it scares me how much I love you._

Like: _there's nothing I wouldn't give to take back that thing in the car, and every other stupid time you wanted to say yes and I wanted to say no._

Like: _everything is ten thousand times less fun without you, and I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else._

But this is not a movie, and she's a mess. "Um. No. More like..." – losing her nerve – "dinner?"

"Oh." His face is – very hard to read. Not just because it's dark. It breaks her heart all over again. "I – now?" he says, finally, not sounding terribly enthused.

Her hands are shaking. She shoves them in her pockets. "I don't know, um. Yeah, now. Sure. Or tomorrow. Or like, I was kind of thinking, the rest of our lives?"

*

Later: they climb into his car, so as not to freeze to death, and she tells him – well, a lot of things that don't bear repeating. They definitely both cry, which is embarrassing, but luckily there are no witnesses.

Later: they go back to his place, and they do get dinner, but it winds up abandoned on the counter, getting cold. If there's anything left to say, they let their bodies say it, because they're champions at that, at least, after all. As far as words go, Scott says, "I love you," probably six or seven times, and Tessa expects it to sound different than it used to, but it's the same. It sounds just like it always has.

She tries a couple of times to say it, too, and only once is it actually audible. Mostly she's just kissing him, touching him, willing him to understand. (He does.)

Afterward, staring at the ceiling, she says, conversationally, "You can't ever leave me, you know." And then, smaller, half-hoping he won't actually hear, "Please don't ever leave me."

Scott's quiet for a long moment. She turns her head and finds him looking at her, with this expression like he can't believe what a stupid thing she just said. She opens her mouth to say, well, something less stupid, hopefully –

"I think that can be arranged, T," he says, and kisses her.

**

_VANCOUVER_

"Do you think we could do it in every city?" she wonders, propping herself up on his chest, reveling in the look on his face. What? She's nothing if not goal-oriented.

_OTTAWA_

"Maybe every _major_ city," he concedes, laughing, as she divests him of his patriotic jacket.

_PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA_

"Together."

They do, in fact, go out with a bang. And a couple of gold medals. Whatever.


End file.
